My kids are getting along and I’m afraid the world is ending.

Seriously.  This has never happened before.  Not like this.  It’s been over two hours.  I’m afraid to move.  I’m pretending I’m not here.  I DON’T WANT TO MESS IT UP.

I didn’t even realize how much time had passed.  When they first started playing, I figured I’d hear screaming, crying, or whining within a few minutes, so I started Facebooking.  (By Facebooking, I mean scrolling mindlessly while reading posts from people I don’t talk to anymore and then commenting on their posts as if they care to hear from me any more than they care to hear from the other kid they met in day camp arts and crafts in the summer immediately following third grade.)

Mom-ears perked (you know, those ears that can hear your baby sneeze through seven closed doors and up two flights of stairs), I glean that they’re still playing nicely.  Figuring it’s a weird fluke, I plummet further into the depths of Facebook and am now searching for guys I “dated” in the summer before I met my husband to see if the girls they ended up marrying are prettier than I am (probably), their kids are cuter than mine (definitely not), and they got a cute dog (kudos to any who did – dogs are the best).

Now I hear the first-grader ask the preschooler if they want to play “Paw Patrol Screechers Wild,” and I don’t know what that is, but as long as it doesn’t involve taking apart the couch and throwing themselves face first into the cushions they’ve strewn all over the floor as per their usual witching hour routine, I’m cool with it.  In fact, I am shocked.  Elder child has decided that he “hates” Paw Patrol and it’s for babies, though he refuses to let his stuffed Marshall pup leave the room… Upon request, I help them carry all the Paw Patrol vehicles AND the My Size Lookout Tower, the 3-foot-tall centerpiece to our toddler-chic living room decor, into the kitchen, where they continue to play.

We should have eaten over an hour ago.  Bedtime is in a half hour.

But my kids are playing together nicely and I have no idea when or for how long this will happen again.

So then I do the unthinkable: I grab my laptop to start to write, thinking this would IMMEDIATELY put an end to the playing, and THEY ARE STILL PLAYING as I write this.  They can stay up until midnight for all I care.  This is the longest I have been able to keep up a single train of thought in about… the youngest is three… so three years.

Oh, wait… I hear something… Is this it?  Is this the end of my respite?  What are they saying?

“I love you.  Best friends forever.”

“I love you too!”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????  I just melted.  I am a puddle on the chair.

My husband just tiptoed over to me and asked, "Uh, are these our children?"

"Right???  I have no idea what is happening."

Now please excuse me while I go buy a Mega-Millions lotto ticket on my way to finding the Fountain of Youth.  I’ll high-five the unicorns I see on the way.