blooming

Last weekend as we drove around the corner of our street where the azalea bushes line the fence, two of the bushes grabbed our attention with their bright pink blooms whereas the others showed mostly only green still.  Tim asked me, “Did those bloom and I missed it?”

He’s been working really hard lately, on an audit and other accounting “stuff”.  I know very little about what he does all day but I listen to what he needs to tell me about with the things at work and the people he works with and his day, because that is what spouses do.  They listen.  I’m trying to be better about it.  It hasn’t always been my forte.

I laughed to myself a little after he asked and I told him he did not miss the other bushes blooming yet.  I said, “Don’t you see, those little pink buds?  They have yet to do their thing.”   I think he was pretty happy to know that they had not bloomed yet.  They impressed us so much the first spring we lived here, that now we wait for them.  Like an announcement of Spring.  Like a pink, blooming welcoming of the season, each petal saying “Here I am, aren’t I so pretty?”

I’m trying not to miss the blooming either with all I have going on.  I know it would be really easy to do. These kids are “blooming” right before my eyes, growing like weeds, almost literally.

But seasons and kids do not care how much we have going on.  They change and grow and move on without a care as to whether we are paying attention or not.  Well, the seasons anyway.  I think the kids care.  I see it in their toothless smiles as they look back at me with pride as they ride off without training wheels on their bike.  I especially see it as I look back at photos of my growing kids, the time lapse so short.

This is our 4th Spring in Louisiana.  It is sort of hard to believe we will have lived here for five years come July…

 

The years pass quickly, so much faster than they used to.  And the blooming waits for no one.

But we are trying hard to pay attention to each beautiful flower…