BB-ism #3

“Finally!!! The BARNES BROTHERS ARE TOGETHER AGAIN!!!”

This is a phrase I originated, and have been abruptly saying it around the fellas when this rare event happens. And as they get older, the event will become even more rare. If you have two or more children, and I know you try not to think about it now, but it will happen. There will be weeks, months, holidays and sometimes years before you will be able to have all of your children in the same place, same room, same tiny spot on Earth, at one time. Right now, my fellas are being pulled in different directions that include football, lacrosse, track, trumpet lessons, African drum lessons with Tink and her dance troupe. Tomorrow it will be college, careers, their own families,etc. Prepare yourself. I’m not sure how, but it’s coming.

You’ll long for those days when you could just turn your head slightly, or peek into your rear view mirror and see them reading, staring longingly out of the window, playing on one of their many electronic devices, listening to their own music, laughing, singing, perched up on car seats, fighting, tickling one another, and fighting some more. My favorite is seeing all of them in a trance, eyes fixed on the screen that pulls down from the ceiling at a Red Box flick. (Speaking of which, I can’t tell you how many kids films I have memorized but have never seen. Its crazy. But I digress.)

Right now, they don’t get it. Their whole world is you and their siblings, and on some days I’m sure they get tired of seeing all of us. Its hard for a kid to fathom that one day, they’ll be packing up every little thing that matters to them, and moving on. The memories that they’ve collected of their childhood, of being with their siblings, road trips (ahhhh road trips. My favorite. But that’s another entry coming soon.) will be just that—warm, hopefully trans formative distant memories.

You know that I look at my boys as the ‘Black Beatles’, so I value every single moment that I’m blessed enough to adjust that rear view mirror and see my guys. I’ve locked so many images of them playing together, seated together on the pews at church, on the bleachers at a basketball game, kneeling side by side on Sunday evening as they say their prayers before a successful school week. Those scenes are locked away in a golden memory trust, because sadly, they’ll never happen again.

This happens maybe once every two weeks: I pick up Nnam and Sy Money from school, I hear Solo jiggling his keys to enter the front door, and then we all ride out to pick up Ezra from football practice, I’m beside myself. Because at that moment, as soon as big brother sits his stankin’ (yes, I said stankin’) behind in the van, I turn to soak all four of them in and yell out, “FINALLY…” and they finish it off in unison, “THE BARNES BROTHERS ARE TOGETHER AGAIN!”