we're wathcing

Some days I'm amazed at just how much time in a day a child will spend watching you. They can be playing and entertaining themselves, and having a grand time when for not particular reason they stop their activities and watch what you're doing. I can be cooking all by myself and then instantly there will be at least 2 kids under my feet or sitting on the rug eagerly waiting to see what you do next. Its a large and sometime overwhelming feeling to know that you are being watched almost every waking moment, and sometimes even some of your sleeping ones. I feel asleep reading last week while the kids were napping to awake to Addy sitting on the floor in front of the chair with a blanket just sitting and looking at me. And the other day Amara woke up early and came down to our room and instead of the usual, climbing into bed with us, she decided to stand at the head of the bed and play with our hair- kind of a disconcerting feeling to awake to.
Days like today make all the messes and seemingly endless jobs of being a mom well worth the time. While sitting on the floor that needs vacuumed yet again, next to the table that still shows evidence of breakfast, with a lap full of toddlers and all 8 eyes are gazing up at me with anticipation for what the next page in the book says, even though they know what is next because we have read it like 50,000 time I continue on and read it again, explain it again. the funny thing is most days I don't even mind it. :)
I sometimes wonder when thinking about how the kids long to be close to us, watch us, interact with us, and imitate us, if I should strive to be more like them. I have a perfect Father, the ultimate example but do I long so hard to be near Him, to be like Him that I drop whatever I am doing so that I can learn His ways and try to imitate Him. Do I try to be like Him, talk like Him, love as he loved. I do hope that some day I will be able to say that I do. Its a constant battle, but one worth fighting. The other day I couldn't help but hear that old song saying, "Lord I wanna be just like you because they want to be just like me." And later when I look at my Father waiting for Him to tell me once more, explain it once more, He will be patient with me too and will explain it once more.
For now I am holding on to these moments with my girls that I know will be gone to soon. I will need these memories to get through those adolescent years where all I will be is the weird mom that ruins their fun. I hope they will continue to watch then too, even if from a distance, and that they will not see me but our Savior.