Eyes

Landon spontaneously brought up the topic of eye color tonight at dinner. He looked at me and declared that I have green eyes. We chatted about they were more like a grey color and his were similar. "I guess like a dark blue. And Anders has light blue. Correct, Mom?" Yeah, buddy. "And Daddy has blue eyes, right?" Yeah, buddy. At least that was my automatic response - my mind knows my husband's eyes are blue. But as I looked at Landon's eyes and Anders' eyes, I panicked for a hot second: what shade are Erik's eyes? It was one of those crazy moments where I was, like, Uuuuh I haven't looked into my husband's eyes since last summer. And then it hit me again: I haven't looked into my husband's eyes SINCE LAST SUMMER. Even during the few times we've Skyped, it's been more about the call/connection breaking up or trying to wrangle the kids to say hi - it wasn't an exercise in looking at each other's proverbial windows to the soul. 

No worries, though. It turns out I do know. I scurried to look at a picture and it was a pleasant feeling to focus and recognize his eyes immediately; a medium blue shade resting between Anders' and Landon's on the color scale. The eyes are still familiar, still special, even in a photo stored on my phone. They're the ones that belong to the boy I met in college. They're the ones that echoed his words "I do" on our wedding day. They're the ones that cried when our sons were born. They'll be the ones that shine with more tears at homecoming. I'll be sure to focus on them a little more in the coming year. So, Honey, be warned that I may come across creepy at times - my heart's in the right place. 

There's more cheese if you, dear reader, can handle it. As that panic moment receded, Landon continued with the questions. What color are Uncle James' eyes? Uncle Bobo's? And then Anders asks about Aunt Jill's. It was kind of fascinating, really. They seemed legitimately interested as they picked random names from their minds' hats. And then Landon asked about Nana Lolly - my mom. I replied that she had the most beautiful bright chocolate brown eyes and Landon says - I shit you not - verbatim: "Well I haven't seen them in my dream before, but maybe tonight when I close my eyes."

Well, folks, that's just when you take an extra long drink from your beer and officially use your kid's leftover gross dinner napkin to catch tears from the corner of your own damn eyes. The grey ones.