At least for me

Maj is yelling at me from the other room . . . she wants to know if there are any more comments on the interview she did for yesterday’s post.

“No, babe.  I think everyone who is going to comment has commented.”

“What?  Are you kidding me?”

“No, I post something new every day.  The people who were going to read yesterday’s post have read it.  And if they were planning on commenting, they have already done it.  They are done with that post.”

She walks into the room all loud, “That’s insane!  What do you mean, they are done with it?  They just throw it in the trash?”

“Well, I don’t think most people bother to print the blog out, babe.  They just read it on the computer.”

“Let me get this straight.  You write every day, but nobody saves it or prints it out?  They’re just done with it?”

“Yeah, that’s sort of how it works.”

“That is the dumbest sort of writing I have ever heard of.  Are you serious?  Why would you want to keep doing that?”

Ummmmm.

She looks over my shoulder, “So what are you doing now?”

“Writing my next post.”

Her voice rises, “You’re going to bury my words?  Are you crazy?  Leave mine up for a few days so that everyone can see it.”

“That’s not how it works, babe.”

“You didn’t tell me that!  I didn’t know it was only going to be there for one day!”

“Maj, it will still be there.  It just won’t be the first thing on the page when people visit.”

“Hmmmmph.  Tell the people reading today to go back and read yesterday’s post again.  Things are worth reading more than once, tell them.”

Snort.

“And why do you keep writing snort?  You are not actually snorting.  That would be disgusting.”

Snort.

“Stop that!”

“Go do something else, Maj.  I need some time to think.”

“Fine.  Tell the people that I will be in the other room reading a book that I have already read, and that I expect it to be just as good the second time.”

Snort!

There is quiet for a moment.  I sit in the quiet for a moment.

I never read books twice.

In case you were wondering.

Maj is getting to be such a big girl.

I remember the months before Kallan was born?  Maj had just turned two.  I have mentioned before that Maj was late to talk, so you will have to imagine a silent two year old Maj.

I know . . . it’s difficult.

With just a few short months until the arrival of her sister?  Maj was still sleeping in a crib.  Mark and I wanted to transition her to a big-girl bed before the new baby arrived.  So we set the big-girl bed up in Maj’s room.  Maj’s crib was on the wall to the right as you walked into her room, and we set up the big bed on the wall adjacent, underneath the window.

We left both beds in her room for about a week.  Maj continued sleeping in her crib . . . but during the day she played in the big-girl bed, rehearsed how she would lie in it, and practiced putting put her various dolls to bed in it.  I spent a lot of time talking with Maj about how the new baby was coming, and about how she was getting to be such a big girl, and how a big girl got to sleep in a big bed.

Even then?  Even without words?  Maj was the sort of girl who needed time to think about changes.

After about a week, Mark and I had Maj help us dismantle the crib and put it up in her sister’s room.  Maj helped us carry things and reassemble the bed.  Seriously?  She was the most grown-up wordless two year old in the history of the world.

And then it came time for bed that night.  Maj’s first night in her big-girl bed.  We did the whole bedtime routine (there were a lot of extremely specific requirements to Maj’s bedtime routine), and then I tucked her into bed.  She stared up at me with her huge huge eyes and smiled at me as I turned out the light and shut the door.

Maj always went to sleep very very quickly and quietly at that age, but still?  I was surprised to hear no noises from her room.  It was a big change, and Maj did not generally like big changes.

I went to check on her before I went to bed a few hours later, happy that things had gone so smoothly.

I quietly opened the door to her room, and the sight that greeted me?  It just clenched up my heart in that way a mom’s heart can clench sometimes.  Clenched with pain and love and guilt and . . . mostly love.

Because Maj?  She wasn’t sleeping in her new bed beneath the window.  She had taken her pillow and her blanket and her favorite stuffed animal and arranged them on the floor.  Maj was curled up small and sleeping exactly where she always slept.  Facing into the room from where she always faced.  Her back pushed up against the wall.  Sleeping as though she was in her crib.

But with no crib, nothing beneath her but the floor.

The memory of it clenches my heart even now.

I scooped her up and placed her into the bed, tears streaming down my face.

And in the morning?  As Maj was getting dressed and I was congratulating her on being such a big girl?  I asked if maybe . . . perhaps . . . the big-girl bed might work better over on this shorter wall . . . I tapped with my hand . . . this one here . . . where her crib had been.

She bounced and shrieked with glee.

And together?  Even before breakfast?  Maj and I pushed her big-girl bed from beneath the window to the wall where it belonged.

And the crib waited in the next room for Kallan’s arrival.

See now?  Maj is right.

This one is a story worth reading again.

At least for me.