For Real

A couple weeks ago. It was the first really warm day and I told the girls they didn't need jackets. This was exciting. I had dressed them in matching dresses and leggings, something I swore I'd never do. I'd never be that mom, you know the one who buys matching clothes for their little girls, the one that waxes poetic on how big her creatures are getting, the one who oh-so-tritely bemoans the cycle of seasons, the passage of time. Let me tell you something. Let me tell me something:

I am that mom.

We walked to school. We have started doing this every day and oh how I adore this time with them. I wonder if it's too far to ask them to walk, if it's too great a distance for their little bodies, if it will tire them out before school. But they tell me no when I ask. They tell me they are fine, that they love it, walking all that way.

We were a few blocks from school and Big Girl looked up at me and put her little hand on her little chest and said something, something wonderful, something I will not forget.

Mom, my heart is beating. For real.

Yes, babe. It is. It is beating.

I smiled and we walked, the sweet sun shining down on us. I did what I could to soak it all up - that hair that had never been cut, those colorful backpacks, those matching dresses that won't fit for long.

Yes, I am that mom.

And I love being her.

My heart? It's beating. With love. With awe. With awareness. With life - theirs, mine, ours.

For real.

Are you the mom you thought you'd be? The dad? The person? Do you think it is inevitable that we become the things - often good things - that we vowed never to become? Do you dress your kids in matching clothes? Do you wax poetic about the relentless march of time?