I tried to take a nap yesterday afternoon.

I had the day planned out. In between emailing people back, getting caught up on blogs, going to the market, and paying bills would be laundry. Always laundry. And somewhere in the middle there, all three of us would take a nap.

Since the girls woke up at four in the morning, I thought that they’d be exhausted by noon. We would have an early lunch and then settle in to watch a [long] Disney movie up in my bedroom. My rule is that during the movie, they have to stay down on their sleeping bags. After the movie, we’d play outside, color, or anything else.

Almost as soon as the movie came on, the girls were wired. They bounced. They made skirts out of blankets. They asked for water. They asked for a different movie. They tried to jump off the end of my bed. Anything but sleep.

Which meant that I told them to stop bouncing, told them to stop making skirts out of blankets, went downstairs to get water, said “no” to a different movie, and told them to stop jumping off the bed.

I didn’t nap. And I was so tired.

I decided to pack my pilllow and blanket and head to the floor and squeeze between them trying to calm them with my presence. Still no nap.

My littlest kept gently kicking me and grabbing my arm. Constant. Incessant. I can’t even sleep when someone is touching me more or less kicking me.

I shut my eyes anyway. Then I realized that someday I won’t get the chance to nap between my daughters. I won’t have the luxury of three-year-old sized fingers grabbing at my ear or rubbing my eyebrows the wrong way. And it is a luxury.

I decided to let her kick and push and grab. I rolled toward her and held her.

Someday we’ll be women together and if forced to share a bed in a hotel room we might sleep with still limbs and be afraid to roll over and touch the other. We won’t have the same luxuries of affection we do now.

I didn’t get my nap. But I’m alright with that. I got to hold her.