Early morning. Any given day.
It’s dark and the house is quiet, except for the one small boy who’s stirring. No, not stirring. Leaping. Leaping into being awake.
I manage to hold him off enough that I can stay in a state of being half asleep just a little longer, but soon he’s had enough.
“It’s time to go downstairs.”
I peel myself off the bed and we go.
Once released from the bedroom, he gets quiet again. In the early morning, he sits on the couch with his milk and watches TV. I sit at the table and eat cereal while hopping from site to site to app on my computer – my own way of waking up to the world. (When did I stop reading the newspaper? I can’t remember.)
Eventually, inevitably, a small voice floats over from the couch.
“Come sit over here.”
I join him on the couch. He shares the blanket and finds a spot for his toes somewhere underneath me where they will be warm. To an outsider, he would appear to have settled in nicely. But I’m his mom. I know he’s not there yet. There’s one more thing.
“I need your arm.”
(When he was really small, it was necks. He’d sit on my lap and lean his small head into me and tuck it under my chin. He’d reach up and touch my neck. It was his comfort thing. He still does that to my husband, but for some reason he’s moved on to my arm.)
He takes my hand, turns it over, and then runs his small fingers over the tendons on the inside of my wrist, feeling the bumps. He does this absentmindedly, and if I move he pulls my arm back.
Looking at him, I can see he’s somewhere else. If I talk to him, he doesn’t really hear. But if I move, he notices.
It’s funny what comforts small children.
“Come sit over here… I need your arm.”
The milk’s not enough. The blanket’s not enough. Whatever the show of the day is, it’s not enough.
I guess sometimes you just need your mama.
