I have these moments that I like to coin “these are the days to remember”. Those moments where you force yourself to pause, feel it, smell it, take it all in, absorb the full experience and mark it down like turning the corner on the top of a page in a great book you are reading. I have these moments pretty regularly. I always think I need to capture them and bottle them up like fairy dust. But the point of these sweet little flickers of life is to simply enjoy them.

Tonight was one such encounter.
I made a delicious dinner of homemade enchiladas with Mexican rice. I love making food and setting it in front of people and watching them thoroughly enjoy themselves, savoring every little bite and being oh, so tempted to lick the plate. I then sent the girls upstairs with Ivan for bedtime routines while I jacked up the volume on my little boombox in the kitchen and listened to Bill McGlaughlin’s commentary on Joseph Haydn’s symphonies. I love this show and find it super calming and enlightening. I washed up the dishes, wiped down all the counters, swept the floor, made chicken stock and then traipsed out to the garden to begin harvesting the magnificent rhubarb.

And this is where the “these are the days to remember” moment came in…
I called up the stairs to my amazing daughter, Audrey Anne, “Audrey, you want come chop some things with me?” And down the old wooden stairwell comes her sweet little voice, “Yes, mommy!” I overhear her turn to her daddy and say, “Mommy wants me to help her chops some things,” with glee in her voice. And down the stairs begins the little footsteps, [ahhh, how I long for an audio clip right about now]. It is one foot down, the other follows. One foot down, the other one follows, but at a super fast rate.

We put our aprons on; yes, Audrey Anne has her very own apron. She gets her own cutting board and some of your jaws are about to drop, her very own Wustof paring knife. I am not like many other mothers. I begin to teach her how to use the knife and how to chop the rhubarb just so. We admire the color of the rhubarb piling up like fish scales, iridescent and so “pretty” as Audrey says. We nibble on the rhubarb to see how tart it is; YIKES! Let’s add a little more sugar, Audrey. Gladly. We move on to cutting up the strawberries which also appear as eye candy thrilling our senses with the perfume and color. Audrey gets the idea that she needs “to dip” the strawberry in something. Sugar. Dip, suck, dip, suck. Kind of the way a toddler eats french fries and ketchup. They never get around to eating the french fry but somehow manage to suck down a 1/4 cup of ketchup. I teach Audrey how to cut the top of the strawberry off, describing the leaves like a head of crazy, fluffy hair. And then take the knife and cut it long ways. And then again. Every time she went to cut the strawberry, she would say, “This way, Mom?” Yes, Audrey.

We had a lot of fun and in the end we cut up so many strawberries we have five sandwich size ziplock baggies full to throw into the freezer for smoothies. Audrey was so proud of herself that before we put the bags in the freezer we had to traipse down to the basement, in aprons and all, and show Abuelita (her grandma) what we had done.

These are the days I will remember.

I leave you with the lyrics to the song written by Natalie Merchant…

these are days you’ll remember
never before and never since, I promise
will the whole world be warm as this
and as you feel it, you’ll know it’s true
that you are blessed and lucky
it’s true, that you are touched by something
that will grow and bloom in you
these are days you’ll remember
when May is rushing over you with desire
to be part of the miracles you see in every hour
you’ll know it’s true, that you are blessed and lucky
it’s true, that you are touched by something
that will grow and bloom in you
these are the days
that you might fill with laughter
until you break
these days you might feel a shaft of light
make its way across your face
and when you do
you’ll know how it was meant to be
see the signs and know their meaning
you’ll know how it was meant to be hear the signs and
know they’re speaking to you to you

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