This week...

I fell in love with my children all over again.

Of course I love them always with everything I have. But I fell in love all over again while I just watched them.

I didn't do much this week. I didn't clean, blog, check facebook, organise, take on house projects or any of the other things that usually take up my time. Instead I watched my children discover how things work.

I watched as all of their aunties and uncles and grandma and grandpa showed their love of my children. How much my children love being around them, and how when it was time to go, I was glad when they cried because I knew they didn't want this experience to end. And of course I noticed that their relatives really enjoyed playing with them. That they often had as much fun as Izzy and Ethan.

And I fell in love with our cottage.

Not because it was particularly beautiful, well decorated or modern. Because in fact, every time the toilet flushed a very loud whooshing noise would go through most rooms in the house, and wake people. And when anyone used the downstairs toilet everyone could hear what they did and how long for, because the door was that thin. And it smelled like old people when we arrived.

I loved it because it was where we spend mornings together eating without hair or make up done and in pajamas. It's where we had nerf gun fights.

It's where we laughed at Ethan mimicking his uncles so perfectly. Where we had no set bed time and where I felt like I wasn't so responsible, not just a mum. 

And I felt like I was newly married again. Stealing kisses on the sofa, sitting on knees, chatting whenever we wanted. Spending as much time as I wanted with the man I love. And occasionally pinching is bum when no one was looking. 

I spent more time with my favourite people this week than I have in the last five years. I saw my sisters-in-laws with their husbands; my brothers. They are lucky men, and I am blessed to have brothers with such great partners who I would have chosen to be friends and now get to have as family.

I have learned to slow down. That a day is not judged by how many items I get done on my to-do list. But by time spent not doing "things", but creating memories. 

That my children are magnificent. They are silly, curious, funny and good - inherently good.

And that I am the luckiest person to have such a wonderful family.