Its the perfect days that are most painful. Those days I get up and make breakfast for the girls…bacon, egg,s and waffles sweetened with strawberries from the garden. The days at the park, teaching them tennis or letting them pelt me with water balloons. A small lunch as I listen to their impromptu songs, with lyrics of love, simplicity and innocence. A lazy afternoon in the yard as they climb the apple trees and make sand sculptures that fall apart. Bedtime story. A song. Rehash our favorite parts of the day as they fall asleep. And plan for tomorrow.
Always tomorrow.
Alone in the basement is when the dread comes in. I replay the day. Wondering if I showed enough attention to the middle child, or coddled the baby too much. Did I put too much pressure on the eldest? Did I hug them all? Did I scold them to harshly? Did I make them feel loved? Did I overdo it? Its like a first date each and every day.

Like everyone else, I fear tomorrow, while trying to appreciate today. I think about the pains they will encounter. Broken hearts and boyfriends. Drunk drivers. Texting drivers. Cancer. Meth. Cigarettes and obesity.

And I think of the human acid eating our world. The global warming and over-population.

I imagine social collapse. I picture them as adults, selling their bodies for bread. Fighting over potatoes or getting raped by revolutionaries. The world melting all around them…

Sometimes I think “How selfish to bring children into this world!” And I want to hold them, freeze them in this age and time and never let them see the ugliness that they will encounter. It makes me weep. Knowing these glory days could end at any moment…These perfect days that will never last.