10. Serving their dinners on Peter Cottontail plates with little dividers to keep the food from touching. (This was especially important to Jack.)
9. Reading Sandra Boynton’s “Barnyard Dance” every single night at bedtime for years. I still have most of it memorized.
8. Watching my daughter’s little legs fly like tiny pistons, pedaling her pink and white bike with training wheels along the sidewalk in front of me.
7. Enjoying bath time and a tub crowded with floating toys and little wet bodies.
6. Watching them play and run around the neighborhood park, often at 6 a.m. (Liesl has always been a morning girl.)
5. Choosing their darling, teeny clothes. I was a sucker for little girl dresses and little boy shirts. And their toddler shoes — so precious!
4. Crowding their artwork on our fridge door. I have tons of it stored away. The one of Jack’s tiny handprint on top of mine with a sentimental poem still makes me cry.
3. Sharing Christmas morning — the explosion of wrapping paper and the day spent playing with new toys.
2. Baking with the kids standing on kitchen chairs so they could reach the counter to lick the beaters and put their fingers in the cookie dough.
1. Smelling and cozying into the soft comfort of their baby bodies sleeping on my chest. Savor all the moments you love with your children — those days fly by!