it's another big day

i confess: I'm disappointed -- wistful? -- sometimes -- often? -- when you go to sleep.

that's not what i expected.

relief is what i expected to feel when your eyes closed in slumber.

and sometimes that's true

but how often i miss you when you nod off, even after patting your chest at 3am and longing for my own bed.

i miss you when those eyes close behind those long lashes -- and I didn't know that would happen.

every day is a Big Day.

in the morning, I look at your glee-filled face and often proclaim: "It's another big day!"

And at night, as I pat your chest, as I meticulously fold your knitted blanket this way and that, across your belly, draped on your forehead, taking care to keep a hand on you all the time, I think: "You've had such a big day."

Me, too, baby. Me, too.