Sunday Night Moments Create Family

Sunday Night Slice of Life — Small Moments

 

It is small moments in time when we glimpse the real meaning of family.

We sit on the couch together. My daughter face lit up by her computer screen. We are together but apart.

I look over at her and give her a smile. She continues viewing her screen. She has her headphones in. I snap to get her attention. Past her bedtime already.

She is watching online Anime. “Ok, hold on,” she says as I snap again to tell her time for bed. She replaces her ear bud and resumes staring at the screen.

I love my daughter. I huff with a little impatience. She has school tomorrow, I mumble under my breath. She needs to head off to bed and get a good night’s sleep.

A busy weekend has past, running to and fro; allowing a friend to stay the night; attending church this morning; and going to a nearby city to see a friend in a long-term facility recovering from a severe car accident. We also sprung our clocks forward. She needs sleep to concentrate tomorrow in class.

Life can pass by in a blur, but time together is important.

I try again. “Let’s go to bed now.”

The dryer tumbles in the background. She now clacks her keys on her computer. I hope she is about to sign off.

Her dad yells from the back, “KR get to bed. Can you fix my computer. It will not start up and this thingy on the screen keeps spinning.”

I get of the couch and head to our bedroom.

I try to reboot and then press the power button until his computer shuts down even though the screens says it is preparing Windows for another time-consuming update.

But when it comes back up the same warning on blinks on the screen. So I tell him, “Sorry, you are going to have to wait.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, up pops the sign on screen. I sign in.

We both call KR again to come back.

She comes in dressed in her short pajamas and cami, ready for bed.  Comes over to stand by us.

We both grab her hand. “Have to pray.”

“Dear Lord, bless KR tonight. Keep her safe and give her a good night’s sleep and keep her mind on softball and doing well in school and off Pizza delivery boys.”

She giggles a little. She is thirteen and boys are now on her radar. Just last night, she wanted us to have our pizza dinner delivered instead of picked up so she could see which pizza delivery boy would come to the door. Her and her girlfriend hoped he would be a cute one.

Thirteen and thinking about pizza delivery boys. The prayer half serious. She has a lot to learn about herself before worrying about boys.

On the corner of my bed, our cat sits squinting at us as we pray. He has been sick lately with his stomach. He throws his food up as soon as he eats it. No other symptoms, no worms, no fleas. He is an indoor cat with all his shots up to date. I pet his forehead as my daughter heads off to bed.

“You need to call the vet tomorrow and see what he says about what we should do,” my husband tells me.

“He probably will just want to see him,” I say. “I’ll call though.”

I wonder down the hallway. Peer into my daughter’s room.

“Night,” I call. “Do you want me to count to 120?” An old traditions I have done with her since she was a baby.

“Uhun.” She answers.

I touch my kissed fingers to her forehead. “Sweet dreams. Love you.”

“Um,” she replies half a sleep.

I return to the couch. Only to have my cat meet me and try to climb over my computer keyboard and start kneading me and purring. I stop typing and kiss him on the forehead. Now, he rubs up against the corner of my computer screen and finds a place to lie down on my leg to rest. I continue typing while my dog, Lily sleeps in the corner curl of our sectional. My husband coughs.

It is late and I have to finish this slice, capturing the essence of family at the end of a busy Sunday. Moments in time pass that build our family. A new day awaits in the morning.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@MaryHill16″]It is small moments in time when we glimpse the real meaning of family. #SOL16.[/tweetthis]

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This post is written for Day 13 of the March Slice of Life Story Challenge #SOL16.

I will also join several of the hops listed on my Link-up Parties page.