Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s Sunday morning. Easter Sunday morning. And so far it’s gone fairly well, considering I’ve been awake since about 7:00. Erika fed Anna around 6 or 6:30, and I remarked, “perfect, we can sleep another three hours and get up in time to go to brunch!” After which we settled in, and all three slowly started drifting off into Neverland, when I heard this explosive liquid noise coming from somewhere lower than Anna’s still-healing navel. For a few moments we discussed the options—after all, we were pretty tired, and she suddenly looked entirely content—and then I felt duty bound to get up and change her.
Indeed, although this wasn’t one of her largest, um, digestive expressions, it was certainly one of her more expansive ones, and I felt good about having gotten up to take care of it, and getting Anna clean and dry again. She felt good, too, but no longer sleepy. We got back into bed, and I decided she should snuggle with me so Erika could sleep. But she would not be consoled; she was at turns bright-eyed and inquisitive, gaspy and choky, on the edge of a good wail, and snorty (well, probably). And I could not quiet her down without getting up myself.
So finally I did, and it didn’t take too long, really, to calm her after some walking around, and I lay down on our couch. She proceeded to get the next hour (? I have no idea, really, but it’s around 9:30 now) of sleep on my chest, while I read and entertained the animals who came to visit, Sam with her happy cold nose poking in to say hi, and Jasper with his restless attempts to be happy at lying on my lap just below Anna, such attempts being fruitless and punctuated with:
- forays into my neckal region;
- attempts to claim Anna’s face as his bed;
- biting of various digits and knuckles belonging to yours truly;
- forcible ejections by shoving, flinging and occasional water-spilling mayhem;
- repeat until cat is dissatisfied with lying-on-the-couch possibilities, gives up, and heads out to conquer the neighborhood bug population.
And I looked at our “Happy Thanksgiving” mural—once so fresh, so timely, so jaunty; now only just the jaunty bit, and perhaps not much of that—for the umpteenth time, and I thought, I’ve really got to paint over that.
It’s been a quiet, peaceful morning.