Nap Time

You refuse to be put down today. Besides the occasional pesky need that I have to eat, I don’t really mind. Sleep training can rest for a while. You grasp a small clump of my hair for comfort. It hurts just a little, but I love that you hold onto my hair.  So exhausted, you refuse to close those big blue eyes, vast as the sea. You search my eyes, and I search yours.  That gaze…you take in my soul. Somehow, you seem to know the song of my heart even without language.  We converse through these windows. We pour out our hearts to one another. You desperately cling to wakefulness as you cling to my long hair. I study your almost invisibly blonde eyebrows, which predicted your hair color long before you lost your dark newborn locks. Your eyes flutter and then close, highlighting those lashes that stretch for miles. I brush your hair with my fingertips. Daily, it thickens, as your nascent bald spots disappear.  I analyze the healing process of the scratches made by your wandering hands, as you have yet to grow fully into self awareness that will soon prevent you from clawing your own face.  Your rosy cheeks display the evidence of the dry winter air in their chapped, barely discernable cracks.  Your lips, the most striking reflection of your daddy, rest in a content downward curve.  The remnants of sweet potatoes from lunch linger on the corner of your placid mouth.  As you fade into slumber, you have the sweetest snore, more resonant to me than a complete orchestra. I am alive.