***
I wake the next morning to a gentle tap, tap, tap on the side of my nose. I blink my eyes open and startle when I see a face looking into mine. Hayley grins at me. “You sweepy?” she says quietly.
I was, until she tapped against my face like a hungry bird. I scrub the sleep from my eyes and look over at Logan. He’s lying beside me with one arm flung over his head, his mouth hanging open. I snuggle deeper into my pillow. “Where’s your daddy?” I ask.
“Sweeping,” she says. She’s dragging a bunny by the ears. “I’m hungwy,” she says.
I cover a yawn with my open palm. I probably have awful morning breath. “Can you go and wake your daddy?”
She shakes her head. “He said to go back to sweep.”
I look toward the window. The sun is just barely over the horizon. “I want a pancake.”
A pancake? “How about some cereal?” I ask, as I throw the covers off myself and get up. I take a pair of Logan’s boxers from his drawer and put them on.
“Dos are Logan’s,” she says, scowling at me.
“Do you think he’ll mind if I borrow them?” I whisper at her.
She shakes her head and smiles, taking my hand in her free one so she can lead me from the room. “You don’t got to whisper. Logan can’t hear,” she says.
I laugh. She’s right. And what’s funny is that it took a three year old to remind me. I hold a finger to my lips, though, as we step out into the hallway. “But your daddy can. Shh.”
She giggles and repeats my shush.
She runs down the hallway, her naked feet slapping softly against the hardwoods until she’s in the kitchen. I search through the cupboards to find a box of cereal.
“Not dat one,” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t wike dat one.” She points to a different box. One with a cartoon character and the word fruit on it. But I know there’s no fruit in this cereal. Or anything else healthy.
“Does your daddy let you eat this?” I ask.
She grins and nods. I shrug my shoulders and pour her a bowl of cereal with milk. She gets her own spoon from the drawer. She knows where everything is. She digs into her cereal, her feet swinging back and forth beneath the chair.
I go and lay down on the couch. I am tired. I think Logan and I got to sleep around five in the morning, and it can’t be much later than that now. I lay back with a groan and close my eyes. I am just getting comfortable when two sharp elbows land in my midsection. Hayley crawls on top of me on the couch. I think she must be part monkey. She holds a kid-sized board book in her hand. “Wead,” she says, shoving it in my face.
I sit up, tucking her into my lap. I take the book from her and open it, but the words jumble. I turn it upside down. “Once upon a time,” I begin.
“Dat’s not how it goes,” she complains.
She’s a smart girl. “I know,” I explain. “But books are magical and if you turn them upside down, there’s a whole new story in the pages.”
“Weally?” she asks, her eyes big with wonder.
No, not really. But it’s the best I can do, kid. “Really,” I affirm.
She wiggles, settling more comfortably in my arms.
I start to make up a story, based on the upside down pictures. She listens intently. “Once upon a time, there was a little frog. And his name was Randolf.”
“Randolf,” she repeats with a giggle.
“And Randolf had one big problem.”
“Uh oh,” she breathes. “What kind a problem?”
“Randolf wanted to be a prince. But his mommy told him that he couldn’t be a prince, since he was just a frog.”
I keep reading until I say, “The end.” She lays the book to the side and snuggles into me. I kiss the top of her head, because it feels like the right thing to do. And she smells good. “Your story was better than the book’s story,” she says.
My heart swells with pride. “Thank you.” If only it was this easy to please the adults of the world.
“Want to watch TV?” she asks.
I yawn. “Sure. Why not?”
She goes over and picks up the DVD. “You go start it,” she instructs.
The DVD player is under the TV, and it doesn’t look that complicated. I put the movie in and turn the TV on. The movie starts, but it’s not a typical kids’ movie. It’s a movie that teaches sign language to children. I drop onto the floor to sit beside her. There’s a lady teaching each of the signs, and there are pictures. There are words at the bottom of the screen for people who can read. But it’s an instructional DVD made for kids.
Hayley sits beside me and she starts to repeat the signs. “You do it?” she asks. “We wearn signing for Logan.”
I am enraptured. “We learn sign language for Logan,” I repeat with a nod.