Adriana must have been eight or nine months old. I nursed her to sleep for her morning nap, and sat on the deck in the sun to write. I listened to Gillian Welch and watched hummingbirds come and go from our feeder. I don't know why that memory stands out so clearly in my mind. I suppose because it wasn't just one morning: when she was that age, that was my normal morning routine. I am thinking of it right now, on a pleasant spring morning. I got some time to snuggle with Lyra and get some housework done while Adriana slept in. She woke up happily and came into my bedroom, babbling cheerily about a dream she had--something about an underwater rocket from our house to Abigail's and purple butterflies out the window--and then left pushing a laundry basket of her clothes to be put away. When she came back she was dressed and asking nicely for her breakfast. She ate and we played with the baby a bit and read a story, and now Lyra is sleeping and Adriana is putting together a puzzle, and here I am at the kitchen table, writing and listening to Patty Larkin and watching a bee drifting around the lavender out on the deck.
