Band called 'Def'

I am wiping down counters after a messy meal of broccoli, chicken and rice. The rough crumbs and sticky rice are now absent from the counters that just minutes ago, had been smattered with them.

It's my regular night time routine and as I am finishing up, I hear 'greater is the one living inside of me...' as well as a host of musical instruments playing from Kevin and I's bedroom.  I walk down the hallway, a little weary from the full day and a little interested to see what I am going to discover as the music gets louder and louder.  As my feet hit the carpet in the bedroom, the singing continues and I see Luke, Lily, and Kevin laying on the bed singing their hearts out while playing the triangle, the moroccos, and the homemade corn shakers.  They switch from 'Greater' by Mercy Me to 'God's Not Dead' by the Newsboys.  In a 'quiet' moment, in which Lily is still playing an instrument, Kevin yells at me from across the room, "We are the band called Def".

  

I giggle as I start to wash my face and prompted by Luke, I join in on the singing.  Kevin is belting out the tunes as loud as anyone and, bless his heart, he could possibly be tone deaf.  The kids don't care and neither do I. Lily is smiling ear to ear, red hair in her eyes (as is normal), with her leggings and tutu covering her bottom half while only a purple beaded necklace covers her top (which also is normal).  She switches back and forth from playing the triangle to playing with her babies as Luke continues the serious singing and playing of every musical instrument we own.

As I finish washing my face, the singing gets louder as Luke decides to sing his own songs.  As each of these new songs end, we all clap furiously and shout 'YAY', as does Luke.  He sings the lyrics to 'Farmer in the Dell' somewhat correctly, then continues on with 'Stop in the name of the LORD...'.  For those of you not familiar with The Supremes, 'Stop in the name of LOVE' was one of their hits released in 1965 that gets sung maybe a little too often around here.  Luke has replaced the word 'love' with 'Lord', which makes total sense.

This was a movie moment for our little family.  It emulated a college student's reckless abandon on karaoke night and a child's joy when he gets his first lick of ice cream and a childhood memory that brings all the feelings of home and family and love to the surface.  Those ten minutes were some of my best minutes as a mom.  They were some of the best minutes of my life.

Mostly because those minutes made a precious memory for Kevin and I and our family of four.  But also for another reason.  Getting the chance to witness Kevin interact with our kids that way just makes my heart want to explode.  The love he has for them and our family is irreplaceable and I can't help but think how truly blessed and lucky and privileged Luke, Lily, and I are that he is our's.

So, I am making a promise to myself to stop and watch and listen and interact and notice those moments.  I almost thought about cleaning up the rest of the kitchen and then finding out what all the ruckus was about, but I would have missed it.  I would have missed it all.  

I want to remember to stop and not just be a witness, but a participant in my family's minutes and memories.

Those ten minutes will be with me now and tomorrow and probably when my kids are grown and I can no longer remember much else.  Because those minutes, they were some of the best.