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Late at night when everything is quiet save for the paradox of the cat I wear the prints off my fingers and it's 3 a.m. and I'm only half done but I have to get to bed at some point.
I take extra time in the bathroom looking at my face. Sitting on the sink and leaning far forward to the mirror--itself alive in the echoes of small fingerprints smearing the glass.
I strip before the bedroom so I don't trip in the dark. I toss my pajamas in the corner.
I crawl under the covers and feel something solid where softness should be--scale versions of elbows and knees all joined together in toddler configuration--a tangled parody of a human form--sprawled in my spot.
At 3 I would normally bring her back to her crib. Rock a bit, knowing the investment in time is worth the sleep that lacks the peppering of little limbs in the stillness, in the ribs.
But this time I don't. My arm slides under her as I scoot her over--all fleece jammies and tussled blonde hair.
A little mouse-voice rings out clear, instantly awake: "Mommy, I smell something."
"That's my toothpaste."
"Oh. You got toothpaste?"
"Yes. Now close your eyes and go back to sleep."
"Okay mommy."
And she flops her whole body into me with a heft and determination that conveys she'd like to return from whence she came; to the body that was all my own, once, and not her joint property.
She presses her nose into mine and her puffs of toddler breath slow and deepen. Her eyelids flutter as sleep comes again so easily. It was just a little blip. She crawls all over me in her sleep, shifting on top of me and over my head and to my side and back again. One wonders how she stays in a crib most nights without inadvertently climbing the walls.
We all wake up late, alarm failing us, and rush to get ready for the day. She rouses--her arms and legs splayed over the entire queen bed in an impossible feat of kidphysics. She is more mass than she contains.
I take extra time in the bathroom looking at my face. Sitting on the sink and leaning far forward to the mirror--itself alive in the echoes of small fingerprints smearing the glass.
I strip before the bedroom so I don't trip in the dark. I toss my pajamas in the corner.
I crawl under the covers and feel something solid where softness should be--scale versions of elbows and knees all joined together in toddler configuration--a tangled parody of a human form--sprawled in my spot.
At 3 I would normally bring her back to her crib. Rock a bit, knowing the investment in time is worth the sleep that lacks the peppering of little limbs in the stillness, in the ribs.
But this time I don't. My arm slides under her as I scoot her over--all fleece jammies and tussled blonde hair.
A little mouse-voice rings out clear, instantly awake: "Mommy, I smell something."
"That's my toothpaste."
"Oh. You got toothpaste?"
"Yes. Now close your eyes and go back to sleep."
"Okay mommy."
And she flops her whole body into me with a heft and determination that conveys she'd like to return from whence she came; to the body that was all my own, once, and not her joint property.
She presses her nose into mine and her puffs of toddler breath slow and deepen. Her eyelids flutter as sleep comes again so easily. It was just a little blip. She crawls all over me in her sleep, shifting on top of me and over my head and to my side and back again. One wonders how she stays in a crib most nights without inadvertently climbing the walls.
We all wake up late, alarm failing us, and rush to get ready for the day. She rouses--her arms and legs splayed over the entire queen bed in an impossible feat of kidphysics. She is more mass than she contains.
