The Day After the Day After

The day after Christmas Day, I didn't get out of my bed.

When I say I didn't get out of my bed, I really mean it. Okay, yes I cautiously crawled out from under the flannel to fetch a glass of water, a cup of tea, a bowl of Cheerios and maybe even some leftover enchiladas from the 23rd, a few trips to the bathroom and one trip downstairs to make sure my family was still alive (they were, and the china was even washed), but that's it. I watched FIVE movies. FIVE. Who does that?

I ate crackers in bed.

And my husband didn't even divorce me.

Who does that?

I didn't shower until the kids were in bed.

And when I did, I stood in there for twenty minutes. TWENTY!

Who does that?

Good lord, I was ti-red. The kind of tired where your eyeballs are on fire, your limbs ache and your mind feels like a big old sack of stale rice. You cannot create a coherent sentence let alone thought and all you want to do is sink deeper and deeper into the memory foam topper that has essentially become your lifeboat on this, this day after Christmas.

I was putty. She knew it. She talked me into watching . . . oh, at this point I cannot even remember, it's all a blur. She crawled into bed next to me on her father's side and melded her body into mine.

"This is fun, mama," she said.

"It sure is baby," I answered, smelling the top of her head, hoping for just a whiff of that toddler/baby smell that mothers can sometimes smell on their children from time to time even when they are seven. She smelled good. Innocent. Awake.

So unlike me in that moment.

My thoughts stayed in that moment, that midday moment where mother and daughter lay supine underneath covers, wind blowing outside, twilight nearing, the light disappearing little by little until the room became dark enough to turn on the bedside lamp. I wondered if it was because she's my littlest, or because she's my daughter - what was it that tied us together like this in this moment?

It doesn't really matter, I suppose, and I think about things like that far too often than I should. What matters is that it is, and that it was. And being in the moment, albeit just for a day after Christmas afternoon of calm and quiet, it was such a lovely, lovely gift.

One that I need to remember on the day after the day after when the chaos returns.

I hope I don't forget.