Monday, February 6, 2012

The twirl - Slice of Life


Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers


I lay in bed on Monday night mulling over what to write my “slice” on for this week. At the forefront of my mind was the upcoming World Read Aloud Day, I keep meaning to write about it but haven’t. (And will soon!) But then, something distracted me. I felt a gentle tug on the rubber band in my hair. It slid out, and my hair began to twirl around little fingers.

Liam.

Chris and I have been blessed with two boys. Luke is nine, Liam is six. When they were little we made the decision to co-sleep. I had no idea at the time that people took up sides in regard to co-sleeping. With Luke, it was a matter of survival. With Liam, it was just something we did by then. Luke moved into his own room when he needed the room, around the age of three. Liam stayed in our room longer. We began a remodel of our upstairs to create a “master suite” and he didn’t have anywhere to move until it was done. I thought the transition would be harder than it was, but he has been fine.

One lasting habit of co-sleeping is that Liam loves my hair. He has always gone to sleep twirling it. When I’m out of town and my husband puts him to sleep, Liam bemoans the fact that Chris doesn’t have long hair. We joke that he will need to bring a wig with him to college. But honestly, I love it.

I’m not blessed with much in the way of height. Written as I stretch my entire five foot one AND ½ inch frame. And the downfall to marrying someone who is six foot seven is that your babies aren’t tiny for long. In fact Luke announced (with delight) that when he grows two more inches he will pass me up. His feet already have. Liam won’t need long either. So I treasure any time where they still seem young to me. Luke doesn’t want me to lay with him to go to sleep anymore. Liam does and I treasure it.

We lay down each night on Batman sheets, picking the books to be read together. Tonight, Henry and Mudge topped the charts. Alternating pages we slip into Christmas time with Henry and Mudge. We laugh as Mudge licks up cookie batter in the kitchen. Liam says it reminds him of our dog. Finally we reach the end, books placed to the side, I turn on the same CD he listens to every night, Levon Helm Dirt Farmer. (No idea where this came from – my husband I guess?) Liam lays down, I place my laptop on his side table and lay next to him. Looking over notes from my grad school assignment, I begin to plan my presentation for Wednesday night. My mind bored, it slips to my blog post. And then, I feel his fingers in my hair. The twirling begins. I swear he could give out head massages and people would pay a lot of money.

Tonight he must be tired because he twirls for just a bit and then I hear him whisper, “Mama.” And he’s out. Life is good. Treasure the moments.