It’s Saturday night, and we’re all scattered around the living room. Our living room isn’t that big, so my feet are resting up against Sarah, and I could kick Lilli, Julie and Marc with no effort whatsoever (to be clear, I don’t want to kick them, just pointing out that we don’t have a lot of space here). The girls are playing a board game that we lost the instructions for, and nobody really knows how to play it. Marc and Sam are playing minecraft together. Lucky is sound asleep, curled up next to Sam.
It occurs to me that I don’t have this many more of these left. Lilli is going off to college next year – and in a real way, it’ll be the end of an era for us. Having all five kids hanging around, on a random Saturday, arguing and playing and fooling around together. Her life won’t be HERE, not the way it is now.
It’s odd, as a stepmother. Because she’s not my daughter, but she’s not NOT my daughter either. And my life will change when she’s not here anymore. I will miss her, more than I can say. I’ll miss her being the oldest, being the one that Jessie always likes, the one that helps me cook Shabbat dinner, and is always up for a day trip.
But more that that, I’ll miss this. I’ll miss having all five kids, bopping around the living room, all within kicking distance. I know that there will be other blessings – that as the kids get older, things change and adapt. Four years ago, we couldn’t have done this. Actually, six months ago, we probably couldn’t have done this – because Julie isn’t the best at playing big kid games. So there will be, undoubtedly, new things that I’ll love. But I do wonder how many more of these nights I have before all the kids grow up, before Saturday night means a night out and not a night gathered around the coffee table with your siblings and parents.
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