Between Sips

Photo by Jonathan Knepper on Unsplash

I move, with coffee in hand, to the front window and plop on the couch. The snow falls outside, not gently but not in a fury. I watch. Sip. Suddenly, I’m jarred back to chaos inside by a drawling fuss—the one that instantly gets under my skin. My two-year-old wants the car his brother has. I tell him he has to wait. He asks for a new truck but I cannot find it. Surprisingly, he moves on. I take a sip of my coffee and open my phone to see a friend’s old video. Her girls are younger, singing a song together. And I wonder if she ever misses those days or if their independence now would make it hard to go back to that time. I glance outside and assume it’s both. My son shows me his teeth; I give him a kiss. Teeth. Kiss. Teeth. Kiss. Peek outside. A blanket is thrown over my eyes by my four-year-old and I squish him against the couch with my back. We share a laugh. He talks about how he asked God for snow yesterday as we all momentarily pause to witness it drifting outside. “Mo’e juss p’ease.” Close the dishwasher, please. “Mom, where’s my Lightning car?” Speak kindly to your brother. I take another sip and my coffee’s cold. I remember I should make those muffins for this weekend and take out meat from the freezer for dinner. A lingering look at the snow. Answer a call. Wipe a bum. End a fight. The snow stops and the coffee’s gone. And I find that I savor, the morning and my children, not in uninterrupted time but in all the seconds between sips.