Goodnight

Tonight I came in just as you were both almost asleep. You were both in that fuzzy state. That warm place somewhere between awake and asleep. It is the place you are in the mornings when I still carry you from the bed to the couch when we have somewhere to be. Tonight you were both in the bottom of the bunk bed. In one twin sized space. "I'm not asleep." Stephen whispers. "Yes you are." I tell him. He sits up enough for me to pull him to me. Little head with all that hair. Warm little body with such soft skin on your face and your neck and your hands and your feet. Your hands reach up and find my ears and then you run your hands under my chin. "Its you, Mommy" Stephen says. "Its me, baby" I say back to him.  He then reaches over to shake Ansley who was probably a little more asleep than my boy. "Mommy is here." he tells her.
"Lay down, Mommy." Ansley says. Now where exactly I was going to lay was a true mystery. Instead I pull her up to me. My boy tucked into one arm and her into the other. I breathe both of them in. Their apple shampoo and the faint smell of a southern summer of outside playtime - a mix of sunshine, grass and orange popsicles. I push wild hair back from their warm little faces and then lay them back down into each others arms. Into the little nest they created for themselves in the darkness of the bedroom.
"You are both asleep." I tell them. And they nod. "Yes" says Ansley as she drifts back off quickly. Her little fist is tucked under her chin like she is readying herself for a night of thinking. Sounds like my girl.
"The zoo comes tomorrow" Stephen reminds me, referring to the petting zoo at VBS tomorrrow.
"Yes" I tell him.
"I don't think they will bring the lions. Do you? I don't think they will. Do you think they will come by train?"
"Hmmmm...I don't think so."
"But they might."
"Yes, they might."
"I will close my eyes now, Mama" Stephen whispers.
"Good." I tell him. "That is good."

It is good.