she tosses and turns. little limbs splay to the left, then the right. she rubs her eyes, stares at the ceiling. she wakes up asking for mommy.
mommy’s at work, i say. she asks again. it goes like that sometimes, as if she’s still dreaming and she doesn’t know she’s awake already.
mommy’s at work, i say, want to go downstairs? and she nods and wobbles up and climbs into my arms and just hangs there, goes limp. i would think she fell asleep again if not for her giggling as i bound down the steps, always with the horrific thought that because i can’t see the stairs because i am holding her in my arms, i will miss a step and we will tumble and i will snap my neck or hers most definitely, so i wobble down kind of quickly, kind of slow and she laughs because she thinks it’s a game when it’s this horror show in my head but we get to the bottom without incident like we always did.
and after the whole bathroom routine, i convince her that she wants eggs and hash browns for breakfast and even a little bit of juice too and she does just that without complaint, like we’ve been doing this every day all along when in actually it’s literally been months since i cooked for her, months since we sat up together in the morning at the same time.
and sitting with her here now, eating, helping her eat, her mad hair from sleep clipped back and away from her face, watching bugs bunny, i have my daughter back after such a long drawn out summer, and we fall into the routine, we fall back into comfort.