My head was pressed up against the black leather head rest of our rocking recliner as the familiar hum of its back and forth filled the room.
My eyes closed, I was thinking about all of the other things that I needed to be doing as my foot pushed off the floor for what seemed to be the 1,263rd time.
It was a longer-than-normal bedtime routine for a tired three and a half year old and her worn-out mom.
I had already rubbed her still-wet-from-the-bath hair.
I had scratched her arm.
I had played her favorite bedtime song (because who doesn’t love Frosty the Snowman in the fall?)
I had already told a story about a princess who played hard all day and then went to her castle room to go to sleep so she would have enough energy to play the next day.
But every time I peaked down to see if those pretty little eyes had given in, there she was — her face lit by the hallway light sneaking through the crack in the barely opened door — doing the “slow blink.”
Over and over again.