my second request

When I pray for Norah and Harriet, the second request I make is always that they will love and treasure one another.

To reach our laundry facilities we must go out of our door, down three flights of stairs, through an iron gate, across the backyard and into a small concrete building. Just describing it gives me the opportunity to practice prepositional phrases. (And makes me tired.) If I must do laundry during the day, this means at least five minutes of leaving Norah and Harriet alone in the flat, counting time to poke coins in the machines and get everything loaded and run back upstairs. (Why don’t I take the girls with me? Because I cannot carry a baby, two or three loads of laundry, and laundry soap while making sure no one falls down the concrete stairs.) So I leave them, as I did this morning. I put Harriet in her crib in the girl cave with a Christmas tin and a jingly bell, and left Norah playing in the living room. Then I locked the door and raced off, entertaining myself as I always do on the way down the stairs with visions of What Could Be Happening.

When I returned six minutes later, I heard the jingle bell before I had closed the door behind me. Thus I knew Harriet was at least conscious, so I peered into the living room first. No Norah. “Norah! Where are you???”

And I heard, “We’re here, Mommy! I comed to Haywet!” And I peeked in. There they were, cuddling, both sitting in Harriet’s crib.

Norah’s explanation? “Haywet was sad, so I climbed in to be wif her. We’re being sisters!”

More? See Of the Sweetness That Almost Breaks Your Heart and this one

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