Comfort and Joy

I used to read a lot to my children.  Back when they were little.  They'd snuggle next to me or on my lap. It was always my favorite part of any day.

Except then they all got too big.  They read their own books and are no longer captivated by chunky board books made for chubby hands to hold.  No more Goodnight Moon.

Sigh.

(I do still read to Mark every day with varying degrees of interest on his part.  Lately we've been reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and you can't not love that book.  He begs me to keep reading when we finish a chapter.  That makes me happy)

In December, we unwrap a Christmas book every day to read as an advent calendar. With our increasingly busy children, sometimes we have to catch up for missed days.  We don't have long stretches of time together like we used to.

Sigh.

But the other night, Braeden sat on one side of me, Emma on the other.  They each nuzzled close to me.  Mark came and proclaimed he was sitting on my lap.  I was as happy as a clam.  (A slightly squished clam...Mark's bigger than he used to be.)

As I craned my neck around Mark to read the story, I thought that I was probably in the best place I could be...in a nest of my children, reading.