I check on my littlest one before I go to sleep.

Her hand is steady. She’s been in bed for three hours now – enough time for her little body to settle into its sleep rhythms and breath patterns, into its own warmth it will keep during the night.

Her hand is warm – not the sweaty fidgeting of falling into sleep, or the cool skin in the early hours of the morning when the light seeps through her shutters. But the comfortable, safe warmth her body lives in in the middle of the night as she sleeps.

(I thank God that I can keep my children warm at night. Under familiar blankets. In smooth beds. With fresh scents and clean sheets. I thank God I can bathe them in the evening and place them on their pillows with damp hair.)

I check on them. Before I can sleep, long after they’ve closed their eyes, I need to check.

Maybe it is that promise I need to keep. To them. Or too myself. I’ll check on you…

Or maybe it’s seeing that she is safe before I can give my own mind over to rest.

Maybe it is simply checking that her hand has reached its warmth – that she is under her blanket (the fuzzy side, not the silky side) – and that her dreams seem peaceful to me looking in. Her blondish curl is stuck to her forehead and she turns and lets out a sleep sigh. It is long and drawn as if she is too caught in sleep to stop her little voice. I put my two fingers in her palm and she immediately, slowly, curls around me. She grabs my hand and loves me, even in her sleep.

Maybe this is why I check on her. Selfishly so, to feel her love for me before I go to my own bed.

(Originally publishes on May 23, 2008 as “Checking“)