My heart was never more breakable than it is now

StraightMan tells me that I nostalgize our children when they are asleep. On our way to bed, we go into their rooms to check on them. I always linger over them, listening to them breathe, laughing over the crazy way they have flung their arms or legs out of their covers, and sighing over how much they still look like they did as babies. I tell StraightMan how much I love them. He laughs, then turns off the light.

He is right, of course. Sometimes parenting seems much more rewarding and wonderful from a distance.

However, I also think it is always worth being reminded of how much I have.

Which is why I am sitting here, feeling misty over this piece on parenting by Anna Quindlen.

As Quindlen writes:

You could read human progress through the tears. The tears of a baby are often a reflex, for a toddler almost always the fruit of frustration or fatigue. The tears of a child begin to be the tears of knowledge. The older heart is more breakable.

Not just the older heart, but the heart that is connected meaningfully to other hearts.