I love the way my heart goes *ping* when reading a great book

I explained recently that I am once again falling in love with reading. It has been a long time coming and now I am in the throes of it! My heart and head were restless last night knowing that I only had a few chapters left of a book, a piece of fiction no less, that I began reading on a train journey a week ago. So, at 2.30am I was suddenly and completely awake, heart pounding with the strongest urge to finish that book and so that's what I did! I love the solitariness of reading. It has come at a time where I feel the need for a little reflection, a time where I could use some escapism as I contemplate what the future holds for me as the time draws closer for that last fledgling of mine to begin school. It also comes at a time of year that just might be the most exhausting, those last weeks before the summer holidays. I am trying to support and guide all three men in my family through these last days, seeing in each of them a need to rest, to sit and sit and sit, to just 'be' without any great restrictions of space or time. 

So today I am being quiet, conserving my energy as the time draws in for the holidays to begin. There is school to complete and two birthdays to celebrate, a fourth and a seventh and I have not been in party planning mode. Perhaps I am just pacing myself because you see those boys of mine will always have their birthdays two days apart and there are many, many more birthdays to come. I don't much fancy the birthdays of times past where I have stayed up till 2am making cakes, making up party bags and planning crucial games. I say this but already the crazy mama in me is twitching, she will not be able to resist I am sure. In previous years I have always woken up around 4am on each of the boys birthdays, that eldest boy of mine was born at 4.39am and that youngest one at 4.20am, strangely my body and inner clock remember this and stir to remind me of it. I'll be awake anyway and so I may just make cake, why not! So, off I go now to continue enjoying and absorbing the silence that currently fills my home. In the coming weeks, this silence will seldom fall and certainly not during the daytime and so now I am still, I am silent, I am alone .... and it is bliss, sweet bliss.