These are the Days

We stayed in our pajamas all day, our bedheads untouched.  She sat on the kitchen counter while I made us peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches for lunch, insisting on helping me "cook."  Our afternoon was filled with games of hide-and-seek, always counting to twenty-two -- her request.  When it's her turn to count, "eleventeen" sneaks its way between fourteen and fifteen, every time.  When it's her turn to hide, she finds a door to slam shut, yelling "I'M IN HERE!" at the top of her lungs.  We finish hide-and-seek so we can have our very first manicures together, sitting on an old red towel on a linoleum bathroom floor that desperately needs tiling.  Hers are pink sparkly, mine gold.  She asks if she can touch them eleventeen times.  We practice writing the letter A with red crayon, then spend our happy hour baking funfetti cookies with pink icing and sprinkles... eating more dough than cookies, of course.

I hope this is how she remembers me... as the mama who didn't worry about schedules or laundry or medical bills or cleaning or whether or not she'd have anymore children.  As the mama who kept her promises, crawled around on the floor pretending to be different animals, let cookie dough be eaten as an appetizer, planned fun post-nap activities, turned cartoons on during breakfast.

These truly are the days.