Some pictures I’ll never have on film, but in my heart.

• Recently we drove out to Central Market.  (Central Market is in the Inner Loop, but my house is more inner the Loop than that.)  On our way in we picked up a purple balloon for each kid, and tied the ribbons around their wrists.  Leaving the store and walking through the open parking lot at dusk, C&D held our hands and walked with their bodies turned, the balloons bobbing behind them.
• My belly button feels raw and tired. Lately David in the morning leans his body against my legs, and inserts his index finger in the center of my bellybutton. “Aw, Mommmmy,” he says, letting out a sigh and relaxing his body back toward sleep.  I’ve never been able to really see this in the premorning dark, and I’m of course lying down, pretending to be asleep, but I can feel him sigh and move and dig into my innie (even more inner than my Inner Loop house), and so I can imagine how it must look.
• What ads to the picture is Carmen, who in the morning finds my legs and rolls toward them, situating herself between.  She doesn’t scratch them so often anymore. Instead she likes to run her hands up and down then, up and down, like a razor commercial.

We twiddle and stroke, letting the last hazy wisps of sleep disappear under the rising sun.