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When we finally made it back to the house, Allison seemed like she was emotionally drained, albeit in the best possible way. She lay down in the center of the living room floor, starfished as she looked at the ceiling. A large chandelier hung above us, and she gazed at it as she sighed happily. I put Leo back down in his stroller and lay down beside her, where she curled up into my arm and kissed my neck.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too,” I said.
26
ALLISON
The very earliest hours of the day were always a magical time. It was a brand-new day, not even fully formed yet. It always felt like there was so much potential. Everything about the day felt possible then.
Sometimes when it was warm enough outside, I would get up during those magical still-dark hours, find whatever was accessible or easy to prepare in the kitchen, and bring it outside onto the porch with me so I could watch the sunrise. That felt like a special privilege. Almost like I was the only person in the entire world getting to share that secret first moment the sun touched the day.
Those days when I got to have those moments, I always felt my most productive. If the sun could be bothered to take on the huge responsibility of lighting and warming the world for another day, I could at least get up and go to school, do my chores, and function in this world for another day.
That didn't stay so much with me when I became an adult. I still loved those quiet, peaceful hours, and thought about them with great nostalgia every time a TV show or movie tried to capture the feeling of that time. But the busier my schedule got, the more stress I was facing, and the later my life pushed me into the night, the more l had to prioritize sleep over having that feeling. Rather than spending those hours greeting the new day and looking forward to what it might hold for me, I spent them buried as deep beneath the blankets as I could get, hoping I could drag them out so I would be less tired for the rest of the day.
When Leo came, that all changed. Not that I wasn't tired. Motherhood was the single most exhausting experience of my entire life in the most glorious, fulfilling way I could ever imagine. But it also gave me the opportunity to get reacquainted with those beautiful early morning hours. When my baby son drew me out of bed to be fed and comforted, I brought him over to the window to experience those very first moments of the day. They became our tradition in the earliest weeks of his life.
He was sleeping through the night far more now, so we didn't have nearly as many of those moments, but now I had a whole new reason to greet the day. And that was exactly what I was doing the next morning. The kitchen was filled with all the smells of my favorite breakfast foods and some new recipes as I cooked a huge breakfast.
Leo was still there with me. When I woke up, I scooped him up from his bassinet and brought him into the kitchen, where I put him in his Moses basket on the far end of the table. It was out of the way of the cooking implements and heat, but close enough for me to easily get to if he needed me. I stole glimpses at him every few minutes, marveling at just how beautiful he was and how peaceful he looked when he slept.
One day, he would join me in the kitchen and help me make the pancakes my grandmother had made for me. I could already see him standing on a little footstool by the counter when he was too little to see over it, a huge mixing bowl in front of him so he could stir the batter. We'd keep up our morning traditions even as he grew up.
I glanced at the time and went over to the coffeemaker to get a pot brewing. Some mornings were single cup mornings. Some were pot mornings. That day, with all the plans I had for it, was most definitely a whole-pot kind of day.
The burbling and dripping of the machine was just finishing up, and the rich smell of my favorite dark brew had filled the kitchen when Ryan came in. He was rubbing his eyes as he yawned and shuffled toward me.
"Did the baby have a hard night?" he asked, looking over toward the bassinette.
I shook my head as I reached up into the cabinet to get him a mug and fill it with coffee.
"No," I said. I handed him the cup and kissed him. "Good morning."
