To Breathe

"Sam! Sam! Sit down!" Tiny hands attached to one of

my kiddos grabs mine and pulls me to sit on the curb

next to her. 

"What?" I ask. 

"Watch this. I'm going to

breathe like a fish." She puckers up her lips and tries to

breathe as she squishes her cheeks in and out. She can't

hold it for long, bursting into giggles.

"You try."

I fail miserably.

"No, no, like this!" She places her sweaty palms on my

cheeks and squishes them.

"I'll teach you to breathe!" she says.

Breathing. Lately, I feel like I haven't had much room for breathing. My inner alarm clock wakes me promptly at 5:30 a.m., upon which, I wake up in a panic every morning, thinking I've slept past my real alarm...the one on my phone. I grab my phone, yanking it out of it's charge-mode and frantically press the button, head crashing back down onto my pillow when I see, "5:32 a.m." glaring white at me. It's useless to try to go back to sleep, as I have to get up in half an hour. 

6:00 a.m. brings on the rushing to get ready, the scramble to scoop up a pair of clean shorts, my staff t-shirt, socks...socks? WHERE THE HELL ARE MY SOCKS??? ...and then dashing into the shower. I am in the car by 7:20 a.m., heading to work. From 7:30-12:30, I am in charge of my kiddos, laughing, playing, running around, jump roping, counting, and on my feet for five hours. 

I rush home, stopping only long enough to grab something to eat, shower and change before heading to my second job at the library. From 1:30-5:30, I am swamped. The system is down, books are piling up to be checked in...the kids yelling, mothers looking for books, and a sewing class to help teach. 

I get out of work, stopping to grab paychecks from my 1st job and make a pit-stop at home to grab something to eat for dinner. I then head back out to do the errands I have no time to do during the day. 

I make it home, put things away, gather up my laundry and start a load. I tidy my room, check my work email, and finally collapse. 

I sit here, remembering my kiddo teaching me to breathe, realizing that it's those tiny, in-between moments when I do stop to breathe. When tiny hands pull me to sit down. A moment at work where I stop to say hi to a co-worker. A moment of driving in my car, listening to Two Steps From Hell. A moment of reading a letter that arrived in the mail. A moment of pausing in the middle of a work email to smell the newly cut grass smell drifting in the window. 

Short, brief moments during a crazy rushing day, where it feels like I breathe on autopilot. Each day has it's moments of craziness and moments where I feel like my head is completely heavy from tiredness. But my kiddos? They stop me. They pull me down, place their fingers on my cheeks and teach me to breathe. So I'd make a bad fish (seeing as our group name is the Sunfish, that's awkward!), but they make me laugh, they make my day, they melt my heart with their cute ways of showing me they like me. 

They teach me to breathe.