superheroes

It's just Mabel and me right now. It's nice. We get up together in the mornings around 7:30. She pees, I pee, I have some coffee, she licks my feet. It's our routine. I like it.

She follows me wherever I go. Her nails click on the floor behind me and it reminds me of the guys banging coconuts in The Holy Grail. I have my own soundtrack. Makes me wonder. One of the names I considered for her was Ruth. "Whither thou goest, I will go" and all that. It would have suited her. But from the moment I saw her little squished puppy face, I knew she was Mabel.

I like this part of the day. Before the kids are up. It is peaceful. Makes me think, I can handle this day. Bring it on. I'm sipping my coffee, mentally making the change from plain old me to Mommy. Seriously. Because being a Mommy is like being a superhero. It's your alter-ego. Some women can get a little too caught up in it. Forget there was a Peter Parker before there was a Spiderman, if you know what I mean. And that is just so sad.

I had one of the most crazy, wonderful, drunk with happiness moments with the Lion last night. A moment where I thought, this is what being a Mommy means. I woke up at 2 am because he was crying. Not a quiet, half-awake, Mommy can ignore this and let him fall back asleep cry, but a full-blown, screaming in horror, "Mommy!" cry. Like he had had a nightmare or something. My feet hit the floor running. I could almost hear Jonathan's voice, in my head saying, "Man! It's so weird to see you running!"

Lion was lying on his little mattress, bawling his eyes out. The moment he saw me, things seemed so much better in his world, which made me really feel like a superhero. I wiped his cheeks, tucked him into bed all over again and whispered, "It's okay, Mommy's here" a few times.

Here it comes. The moment that melted my heart. The moment I took a photograph of and then slipped the picture into the pocket of my heart:

The Lion was lying on his stomach with his head on his Wiggles pillow. He reached under his blanket and fished around, without moving his head or opening his eyes. He brought his chubby fist up to his face (still without opening his eyes) and sighed. He was holding an empty Jack-Jack PEZ dispenser.