Life is fleeting. Don't forget to live it.

Last week, an amazing, creative, charismatic little 10-year-old boy in my community suffered a critical injury while practicing acrobatics in his bedroom. He lived for only 2 days, before his family had to make the impossible decision to shut off the machines which were keeping him alive. I can't even imagine the depths of the grief his parents must be feeling...I just can't even go there.

So, when we woke up to the first real snow of the season, yesterday, and my boys wanted to go sledding, we dropped everything and went. I whooped it up with those little guys for 2 1/2 straight hours. My bad ankle throbbed so badly it had its own heartbeat, but I didn't care. We must have made 40 trips up that hill! Ouch.

And, when my little guys wanted to build a snow alien, we made an awesome snow alien, with crazy sticks for hair and pine cones for eyes. A little creepy, actually, but quite cool.

Then, when they wanted to gang up against me in a snowball fight, even though I had pulled some sort of tendon in my wrist snowshovelling the driveway, I was all over it. Tired and in pain, but nothing could have stopped me. (By the way, I can still take them both in a snowball fight, even with a messed-up wrist. Two against one....doesn't matter. Oh, yeah.)

And, when we woke up to even more snow and a bonus day off from school, today, we did it all over again. This time, hubby was able to join us on our adventure. With his work schedule, our family days are few and far between, so it made the hours we all spent together that much more precious. And, since we spent most of those hours flying down a hill, covered in snow, laughing our asses off, it was time spent well. Living life to the fullest. Appreciating every moment. My cheeks still hurt from laughing. (As for my wrist and ankle...that's a whole different kind of hurt. But, I wouldn't take it back for a moment.)

So now, as my little ones are drifting off to sleep, I will sip my glass of cabernet, elevate my throbbing, swollen ankle, put a brace on my throbbing, swollen wrist, and snuggle into bed next to my hubby to watch something silly on T.V. And, I will thank my lucky stars that I was able to spend such glorious days with the people I love most in the world, and that I can wake up tomorrow and hug them and kiss them and appreciate them and continue to make beautiful memories with them.

Because, heartbreakingly, some people aren't able to do that with the ones they love...