I spent some time reading blogs this afternoon. After a full Saturday, and a full work week, it was nice to sit down and live in others’ lives for a while.

There are a lot of posts right now about choosing one word. It’s an idea that seems to have taken off and there are more than I would have expected. And there were a lot of similarities in the words chosen. “Calm.” “Serenity.” “Peace.” Being “present.” Even if these words were chosen because of their absence in people’s lives, it felt calming to read them.

One other post jumped out at me. (And now I can’t find it to link to. Sigh. Update: Found it! Thanks Angela.) A mom, of course, and a struggle at bedtime. A head, belonging to a child who’s supposed to be in bed, peeks around the door where mom’s working. A request for a cuddle. Instead of responding with exasperation or an automatic “get in bed!” this mother pauses. She sees the moment for what it is—one of many, yet fleeting—and says yes.

She walks away from her computer and wraps her arms around her child.

I don’t do that enough, especially after bedtime. But tonight, after I was finished my dinner, I had the same request. A small boy holding a bowl of orange ice cream.

“Mama, can I sit with you?”

This isn’t usually my favourite request. I don’t really like him sitting on my lap right after I’ve eaten, and at that point I was browsing through blogs again. But I paused, remembered those words and that post, and said yes.

Tonight I, too, was present. I lived in that moment. And in doing so I found a calming cuddle, serenity in the warmth of a small boy’s back, and the peace that comes from finding your happy place in the squish of a toddler tummy.