A Little Night Music

After Christmas break, the kids are back in school and I come home to the kitchen. The doll on the counter wrapped in a Christmas blanket, just laying there, all the play just waiting, frozen, without the kid to do the imagining.

My favorite noise of all is Bess playing when she doesn't know I'm listening, she just thinks I'm busy doing the things I putter around doing like everything, keeping everything humming, and she's the engine behind me because she's the one I'm listening to, (I do hear it, it gets through) on the rug in the kitchen in her high pitched voice making up stories with her dolls and the salt shaker and a rubber band, all of them talking to each other "let's get 'em!" "I can't go there that's too dangerous" "you can do it!" All the voices are full of power because she's the dollmaster, she is the salt shaker, she isn't apart from them, she's one of them, in the adventure. In the hot tub, she's always looking up at the stars and saying "which one is the 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning?" She is always looking for Peter Pan.

Last night going to bed, she's having trouble going to sleep and then I hear her settle down and her warm back is against my back and she says "I love you Mommy." Her clear, true voice.

So when I get home to the kitchen and I see it without the noise and bustle of all of us, just the breather while they're at school and everything waits, I'm grateful for the doll on the counter suspended there because there will be a little person coming back, and the noise is my music, as much as I complain, the kids are my symphony.