You know how I said there were two things? Yeah, here's the other.
So the night before last I was determined to do the bath and bed routine. So help me God, I was going to do it and Leone was going to love it! No matter that he started to wail as I took him up the stairs, so very far away from his papa. No matter that I've given him baths many, many times in the past and nothing wrong has happened (okay, there was that one time when I called the pediatricians office at 6:30 in the evening, sure my eyes had seen something that wasn't really there).
No matter this, no matter that... I was doing it.
The typical routine was followed: bath, condition hair, brush hair, wait for hair conditioner to do its job, rinse hair, dry the wee booger up, get him all kinds of lotioned up, clean out the ears, so on and so forth. Then we sat down in the rocking chair, read three books, turned out the light, and sang a song. I then continued to do what I typically do- "Time for night-night, Leone... I love you... Night-night!"
The things is, as I laid him down, he grabbed my arms like I better not let go.
So I didn't.
And we went back to the rocking chair and for the first time ever, ever, ever, he laid back in my arms like a teeny little guy and rested his cheek against my chest. His right arm was tucked under my left and his right hand laid up against me in the most relaxed manner. We rocked, we stared at each other, he gave me his right hand for kisses, he smiled like he was all kinds of milk drunk, and he let me rub his cheeks, his forehead, his eyebrows.
We sat like that until well after my left arm was convinced it was going to fall off.
Pure Heaven. In that room. In that rocking chair. On that night. With my boy.
I didn't know how much my mama soul was craving that time with him- but, damn. It was something else.
