Falling asleep with Mama

     855 days.  That's how many days Etienne has been home.  That's how many days it took for him to fall asleep on my lap.  It was worth the wait.
     I had just finished scrubbing the walls from where he had taken his boots and marked a snow-salt path along them when he played with the remote/dvr.  Truthfully, I was acting on exhaustion and frustration, but the "attached parent" reaction was that I snuggled him on my lap on the couch.  As we were snuggling, E said, "Baby Em sleeps on her mama sometimes when she is at our house."  Thus began our conversation about mamas and babies.  I told him that I loved snuggling him because I never got to when he was a baby or really little.  I could tell he was proccessing this but soon he began sucking his thumb, relaxed all his muscles and gave in. 
     I can't recall the first time Molly fell asleep on me but I am positive it was within the first moments of mommyhood.  I don't remember my first true mama moment with Blake.  Mols and Blake were blessed to be borne into arms that had the capability to keep them close for always.  I pray, and I believe, that Etienne's birth mom held him close too, if even for a moment.      
     I remember that all through the waiting game, that paper pregnancy before my boys came home, people telling me "God's timing is perfect," and convincing myself that it was so.  It still is perfect.  855 days perfect.