A new world.  It's spinning so fast that I can hardly breathe.  This axis tips and here we roar and whirl and is this up or is this down? So long I've tucked my babies tight and neat against me and clung to this 'they'll forever need me' and begged them as I kissed their bedtime foreheads: "Promise me you'll always be mine...Promise me that you'll always let me hug you...Promise me...just this...your heart...forever."

"I promise, Mommy."

"Forever?"

"And ever!"

That little one, oozing all her sweet upon the world, stumbling down the driveway to catch a bus as big as a planet, going to school, exploring possibilities with her left-handed creativity...

That big one, pretending maturity and wearing deodorant and building Lego statues to the stars...

That middle one, boasting mighty and oh so funny and tossing wit as fast I can catch it and breaking and mending my heart within the window of an instant...

It's a new world.  I can no longer be defined by their need of me.  This body, never to birth another, can only run beside them, panting to keep up with the whirlwind pace they take on the world, with the comedy that leaks from their seams, with the heartache that drips from their eyes when their sunshine is prickled with 'not fair' or hurt feelings. 

"MOMMEEEEEEEEE!!!!?" The feeble call limps up the stairs, all 'come now and abide by me'.  "Mommy, I puked!"

Ah, so it's not so far yet is it?  They still and always will have need of me just as I still and always will have need of my own who, only last week, I made promise me that they would always be around.  "It is my intention," I informed my mother over an evening phone call, "that you and dad will live forever."

"Oh, really?" she replied, amused and teasing.

"Really."

And I mean it from the depth of my core.