Coming in from the rain

I took the girls to the doctor today for Emery's 2 year and Eve's 4 month well check.  Emery was anxious about it, requesting Eve to be first for everything, even the harmless measuring of height and weight.  Fortunately for her, Eve obliged.  (Sidenote: Speaking of weight, Eve. Is. Off. The.Charts!  Apparently, I make heavy cream for breastmilk and Eve has plenty of cheeks to show for it).

The two vaccines to Emery's thigh that drew immediate blood and tears rubbed salt into my wound from just minutes before when I held Eve for her own innoculating jabs.  But while Eve continued to cry a heartbreaking sorrowful wail from the surprise stabs to her doughy upper leg, Emery immediately perked with a fancy smancy band aid, character sticker, complimentary lollipop and the promise of a strawberry smoothie. 

Promise fulfilled and 15 minutes later, I carried 42.5 pounds of little girls across a cold, rainy grocery store parking lot under the shelter of our little black umbrella.  Emery grinned at the delight of holding the umbrella, and Eve snuggled into her sister and smiled up at me as the rain fell around us, the cars slowed for us and the weather chilled our faces.

We made it to the cover of the grocery store awning and I felt the warmth of the store blow by as the automatic doors slid open just feet from us.  I looked down at my girls, both so big in my arms, so achingly fast.  Their cheeks were flushed with cold but their eyes were bright.  I felt them warming me to my core, grinning for no apparent reason, silent in the adventure of our umbrella escapade, squeezed together with nothing but the cushion of Eve's cheeks between them.  Til' my dying day, I'll never forget the look of them then.

My life is made of hundreds of mornings like this one.  Most of the fine details of my everyday fall through the holes in my swiss cheese of a memory, but the substance always sticks: that of holding each other through the jabs, carrying each other through the weather, huddling in close and coming in from the rain.