Every evening as I go to bed, I want the day back to do over. I want to adore my kids more than I do. And I certainly do. But the day gets in the way and I only fawn all over them for moments, not endless hours. I want to pay attention more than I do. Sure, I notice the sights and sounds and smells and am absorbing every day of jasmine and wisteria season. But I want to notice and feel and absorb even more.

I want to laugh more than I do. I want to play more than I do. I want to revel more than I do. I want more from each moment.

While we’re asking for ponies and unicorn tears, I want 30 hours in each day.

I want my babies back. When they were tiny and helpless I devoured every moment. And I was exhausted and impatient and frustrated and raw. So I want that time back to memorize and be less exhausted and completely perfect. I want the highlights reel to be the whole thing.

I feel nostalgia so keenly lately. Deep into my knees, through my spine, up my arms. There’s a sensation just before a child is injured, or just before I’m sure they’ll be injured: an electric shock from my navel to my extremities and back again that levitates me momentarily. And experience that same feeling in coveting rituals from my childhood.

I decided last month that I need to redouble my efforts to create rituals for my kids. My family. Intentional, repeatable events that bespeak our values. More than holiday traditions, I want weekend traditions and weekday traditions. I want to cultivate our community of supporters and I want us to nurture them, too; I want art and music and volunteering and adventures that form the core of who we all are.

I mentioned the 30 hours, right? Those extra minutes are key to some of my plans.

My grandfather would sit every night at the dining table, breathing the cool desert air coming in from the kitchen door, surgically altering grapefruits in preparation for our breakfast. Sometimes in the crackle glazed ombré blue bowls, sometimes rippled white with burgundy flowers, sometimes, I believe, wooden bowls that seemed more like sanded coconut shells than bowls. I only saw him prepare the honeyed, halved grapefruit once, when I was considerably older, but I know for a fact that every night he held a paring knife and carefully excised the membranes from each section of grapefruit.

Each triangle detached carefully along the rind, down one wall, and then the other wall. Dozens of cuts, all around each fruit bite. Then on to the next bowl. Rarely piercing the skin, rarely allowing any pith to adhere to the fruit. Very rarely. We never struggled to get our citrus out of the rind with the bamboo-handled grapefruit spoons.

He split one grapefruit in two when it was just him and grandma. And extra two fruits, four halves, when we visited. At least thrice a year, sometimes more, with each parent in turn, beneficiaries of the brilliantly embracing love that was articulated to their daughter-in-law, my mother, as part of a permanent friendship cemented with, “we are not divorcing you. We rather like you and we love our grandchildren. Please, please: come see us. And always let them come see us.”

Oh, we did. Early mornings playing tennis, picking pecans from the trees. Eating honeyed, cold grapefruit from the bowls kept in the refrigerator overnight, careful not to spill any on the checked blue and white tablecloth, not because they cared about spills, flawless and jovial and kind as they always were, but because spilling mesquite-honey-sweetened grapefruit juice would be a tragic loss in our little lives.

Yes, playing tennis behind the Virgin Mary’s faded back, heat and dogs and lizards and piano and afternoon monsoons and grandma’s favorite blouses and Indian food and slideshows from their latest trip to exotic and wondrous places.

And I ache for those days so intensely it makes my knees weak and my eyes hot.

So last month I started making my family sectioned, chilled, honey drizzled grapefruit every night that I can. I judge myself harshly for not starting sooner. They need rituals. They need to know who we are.

And I got tennis racquets on sale. I try to sneak pecans into all their food so the sweet, dusty taste of the desert gets into their blood. I have little doubt that if I found a faded, chipped Virgin Mary that matched theirs I would buy it.

I make them some of my maternal grandma’s cream of potato soup. They’ve had it before, but now that she’s nearing the end I bought a 10 pound bag of potatoes and lots of cream.

A few months ago we made a version of my paternal grandma’s donuts. I varied the recipe only because I’m not deep frying in my kitchen. Hell no.

And we’re having daily sectioned grapefruit.

I realize I don’t have to do all this myself. How ludicrous. The little things their five grandparents and two great grandparents share with them will form memories, good or bad. I don’t have to force my memories into my children’s DNA. They will make their own.

I’m sure someone will force my children to watch interminable slide shows on a Kodak carousel, projected onto a retractable screen, and that they’ll roll their eyes and submit, only to revise history to adore being exposed to such culture and knowledge. Right? No? Something something YouTube, something something video game? Bah.

I just know someone will teach my children to make grapefruit meringue pie and will let them lick the beaters before feeding the dogs their nightly ice cream. Right? No? Something something premade dough, something something no human food for pets? Humbug.

Well, certainly, someone will teach my boys to play tennis and ride horses and catch horny toads and navigate the slip’n’slide and play gin rummy the proper way and Scrabble with an unabridged dictionary.

Right?

Yup. I will. Let the grandparents fill our lives with whatever they value. I’m filling our days with Bob and Anne, Rose and Jack.

Because that, and some fresh air, is what we all need.