and then I told her she could get her own goddamn breakfast

This morning Lilah woke me up at 6:30.

"Mommy," she said, trying to locate me in the bed. (We sleep together on a couple of side-by-side futons, so it's easy for her to lose me--except on those nights when she decides she has to sleep right the fuck on top of me.) "Mommy, I want to eat. All right?"

6:30 is about two hours too early in my book, but there's never any hope of getting that girl back to sleep. And uncharacteristically, I didn't want to disturb Stupid Daddy, who had gotten home exceedingly late last night and was sleeping in the boys' room, as he has been for the past few weeks, in an attempt to train Levi to stay in his own bed. So I dutifully said, "All right," crawled off the bed, and scooped her up in my arms.

I was seriously fucking tired, and pissed off about the early wakeup, but then Lilah leaned her head into my neck and started sucking her thumb and I held her like that for a while. It was one of those times where the sacrifices I make as a mother--the lost sleep, the lost figure, the lost identity, all of it--seem totally worth it for a simple, quiet moment like this.

I guess she didn't quite feel the same.

She looked up at me, and in a sweet, soft voice, she said, "I love Daddy."