Face Time

When is the last time you really looked your family in the face?
This past week I realized that seldom do I actually look into my darling daughter's eyes.  Most of our true heart to heart conversations take place while she is riding in the backseat and I am driving.  Sure, sometimes we catch a glimpse of each other in the mirror, but it is only a reflection and she is changing.
She isn't my baby anymore, she is my girl.  Her face is changing, her cheek bones are revealing themselves and her eyes are starting to tell her story and I have been missing it.
So, being the extremist that I am, I have changed my ways almost overnight.  Now, when I fix her breakfast I sit down with her at the island face to face and just listen.  No more television with her beautiful, brown eyes absorbing other faces.  I want her to absorb mine while I memorize hers.
I don't want to miss the expressions behind her voice.  I don't want to look back, like I do now, hanging on to a picture as my mode of reference for the details.  I want to have her face at eight years old completely burned into my memory bank because I looked deeply with intent at it every day I had her home.
And if she feels like I do, she will want to have memories of mine as well.

We are both changing, both growing older, both hoping to hang on to some of these moments for as long as we are on earth.  So, while I am here, I want to remember face time as just that....face time.