When I heard her feet padding along the hall I felt myself cringe. I had planned to shower and spend some desperately needed time alone working on some writing. That plan ended as she came around the corner.
“Mommy, I had a bad dream.”
I offer her my cure-all, knowing some day soon it will not be the answer:
“Let’s snuggle together.” She allows me to lead her back to bed.
“Mommy, I was in the desert all alone and lost.”
We curl up under the warm comforter. When I hear her sleep breath begin I start to plan my escape again. Before I can move I hear Nigel stir and chatter. He crawls over Mikaela, onto me and slides off the bed. Then surprisingly, he turns around and climbs back on top of me. He snuggles his face into my neck, grabs hold of my ear, sighs and falls back to sleep with his body sprawled across mine. I feel the quick beat of his heart like a baby bird’s. I give into it all and relax, surrounded by the warmth of my children. Nigel has never snuggled with me like this before. It is a new stage for us and I concentrate on my breath to keep from crying. Thank you Mikaela, for making this moment possible.
From the second Mikaela came out of my body I snuggled her, caressed her, kissed her, smelled her and I have never stopped. Nigel met me for the first time when he was ten months old. For him that would have been too much too fast. We had to grow our feelings towards each other slowly. Love takes time. He always wants to be held but often he is not discerning about who holds him and he is far too busy to relax and seek snuggles. Raised by many caretakers, he must learn the concept of mommy. One mommy. Me.
Breath in
you are my son.
Breath out
I love you.
I spend the next hour dozing on and off and meditating on the sweet smells of my children and the sound of their breath. Mikaela rolls and flops her arm across both of us.
Nigel’s butterfly kisses land on my cheek as his eyelashes brushed against me. What are his dreams about?
When they wake up we giggle and tumble and tickle around in bed. Michael hears us and returns to bed also and joins the fun. Within moments it is a full ruckus. Nigel barks, Mikaela whinnies, Michael groans that he is late for work.
Over breakfast Mikaela relays the rest of her dreams. Like me she dreams epics with many twists and turns and seemingly unrelated subplots. She stops in mid-telling, crunches up her face and folds her arms.
“I’m thinking” she says
“You're thinking?”
“Yes. I am trying to decide if I should tell it the way I remember it or add some stuff so it is more interesting.”
I can’t help smiling. “ You are trying to decide if you would like to be a reporter or a story teller.”
Nigel whinnies and rears up, pawing the air with toast still in his clenched fists.
I remember a quote I read just yesterday.
"When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer. "
— Isaac Bashevis Singer
