Again

Remember the day with terrible children and the miserable mother and the quarters in the pancake batter and the time outs all around?  We're back there.  Again. Back to the stress and the screeching and the tight, stiff feelings.  And the faces like anguished drama masks.  The girls are evil geniuses today.  Each makes the other their target.  They had an amazing knock down drag out fight within the confines of their double stroller.  Criminal contortionist kind of stuff.  Right down Main Street.  In the pouring rain.  Pouring.  Rain.  I caught a beautician gawking at us through the window....her jaw dropped right down to her collarbone. 
They got frog marched straight to their beds as soon as we got home.  And I stormed around, putting shoes away and threatening impending doom should I hear as much as one whisper of naughtiness. 
I heard a giggle.  Then two.  I was swooping in to.....I don't know what.  Transform into a beast, I suppose, when I got pulled up short.  They were in there, demons gone, children back.  Making a nest out of all their pillows with a stack of books waiting on the edge of the bed.  My mind flashed on the Wicked Witch of the West I'd just met in the hall mirror.  Didn't like it one little bit.  I'm in time out, again. 
In time out to remember, again, the guidance I was granted sitting next to the pancake batter puddle with twenty-five cent lilly-pads: Love them.  It came to me softly like breeze slipping through white linen.  Simply love them.  That's the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of what I aim to do as their mother.  Everything else will grow out of that.  Love them, feed them.  Love them, clothe them.  Love them, teach them.  Love them, tell them.  Love them, laugh with them.  Love them, correct them.  Love them, play with them.  Love them, listen to them.  Love them, hold them.  Love them, guide them.
There are days when I remember.  When I hold those two words in the center of my mind and they help me relax.  Release.  Like the breathing in yoga helps me stretch.  And be strong.  Things flow smoother on those days.  Today, I was forgetting.  So I gave myself a time out.  And, will probably need several more at several other dates.  Until, hopefully, I finally remember forever.  But today, I'll settle for remembering, again.