'S' for Sweet Slumber

"What are you doing in school tomorrow?"  I knew the question was futile but it hasn't stopped me from badgering asking him about school since he started just under a month ago.  It was bedtime and bedtime for Adrian means quiet. Stillness.  Darkness.  And always me at his side.

"I don't know..."  Always, always the answer to most of my questions regarding school.

A change of subject is usually required and then sometimes, if I'm lucky, something will come out. Eventually.

"How about we sing O'Canada."  His teacher told me they sing it in the morning at school everyday, the picture of which makes my heart feel like it might burst into a million tiny red and white confetti hearts.

I began singing, with him filling in the words upon my occasional pause.

As the song came to an end and the lyrics landed softly around us in the twilight he put his arm in the air and said, "S's are easy. You just start at the top and wind it around like this."  He traced a perfect S in the air above us.

Aha.  Here it was.

"Like a snake.  'S' for snake."

S.  For Smile.  He brings a hundred of those to my face daily.

S.  For Smart.  He is.  So much so.

S.  For Sassafras.  The word I love hearing him say with his most adorable four year old lisp.

And then he turned his body toward the wall.  The sign I know all too well.  It is his signal for me to wrap my arm around his middle and tenderly tuck him in towards me. Curled in together.  My capital 'S' to his small one.

I lightly tickle his belly as the wisps of his curls tickle my chin, the rise and fall of his breathing reassuring under my warm hand.

When his breathing becomes deep with slumber I lay there still, a little longer, in the gentle darkness surrounding us.

A night does not go by that I'm not grateful for these moments.  When I close my eyes and breathe in a prayer of immense gratitude.

I lean over his angel-face and kiss the softness of his cheek, whispering words so simple, so true, so often said yet words that can never, ever be said too much, "I love you baby boy."

'Angel-face' sound asleep with his 'Froggy Doggy'.