I met my six-year old daughter, Ella, in the upstairs hallway, coming out of her room. It was about 9:30 on Saturday morning. Not one to be such a late riser, I asked her if she had had a good night's sleep.
"Yes," she replied, "But I wasn't actually sleeping that whole time."
"You weren't?" I asked. "Then what were you doing?"
She looked up at me with the most sincere golden brown eyes and said,
"I was waiting for you to bring me breakfast in bed!"
This comment struck me as being completely hilarious.
I don't habitually bring her breakfast in bed. In fact, I can't even remember the last time that I served her breakfast in bed! Obviously, however, it was an idea deeply imprinted in her mind!
So what did I do?
I brought her breakfast in bed, of course!
This was not an elaborate tuxedo-clad-waiter-at-a-five-star-hotel-with-linens-and-real-silver type of breakfast in bed, but it did include her favorites: a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich on the coveted Pottery Barn Rudolph plate, blueberries with sugar, and chocolate milk in a plastic cup with a lid and a straw. (This last item was for practical reasons, not aesthetic.)
And why did I bring her breakfast in bed, you might be wondering?
Simply put, because she's my baby. And babies of the family are always spoiled by their mothers (just ask me, I'm married to one!) Babies of the family may as well be here for a single purpose -
--to remind us that we never get this time back.
We've been given wisdom as we watch the older siblings grow up.
We've been given the wisdom of knowing just how fast time flies.
The youngest child is our gift to get our perspective right.
This is why Ella, on this particular Saturday morning, got breakfast in bed.
Ella got breakfast in bed because I never want to look back and realize that I missed
a moment to make a peanut-butter-and-marshmallow-breakfast-in-bed-memory.
Not even one.