What we once were.

Ever since I spent Christmas with my three little nephews, I've been thinking about this line from the Wordsworth poem, "Tintern Abbey:"

May I behold in thee what I was once.

In that poem, Wordsworth is looking out over the countryside with his sister, thrilled to see that this is all new to her, that she's getting an enormous kick out of the nearby mountain, the blue sky, the "deep and gloomy wood."  He's been coming to this spot for years, and its magic is wearing off, but in his sister's eyes, he gets to see it new again.

I know this sounds terribly corn pone Reader, but I really do think that kids make Christmas.  "HA!" I can just hear my young parent friends saying.  "Wait until you have some of your own."  Don't worry, I want to tell them.  We're still totally figuring out how to be grown-ups over here.

But on Sunday, when our families spent Christmas together for the first time (Ross's and mine), the morning was just a little bit louder, the presents ripped open a little more vigorously, and the toy train watched with a little more intensity than it was for any of us five years ago.  That's about when Ross's sister had her first baby -- the one modeling Sponge Bob paraphernalia above.

And I think we've all been a little more childlike since.