“Momma, I did,” Nora insisted, “I made it all by myself!” She giggled and threw her arms out at her bed. That night, the pink and white striped comforter was lying taut and flat, the hem of it hanging at a perfect horizontal line on three sides of the bed. The frilly pillows with rows of ribbons, and the pink heart one, and the purple sequin one were propped up neatly against the white iron headboard; even the stuffed unicorn was standing on all fours in the middle of the bed. This handiwork was not a trademark of hers.

“You did not,” I said, keeping it light. A year earlier, I would have scolded her for the blatant dishonesty. Lying is bad. Lying means you are hiding something, and you should never hide anything. And if you feel the need to hide something, well, then that means that that something is bad. And you should not do anything bad. So, don’t lie, okay? Tell the truth. Now, I try not to quickly react and speak to a four-year-old as though she was capable of comprehending my reasoning.

“If you say that I did not make the bed, then who did?” Nora’s tone of voice had shifted, and the playful glint in her eyes had disappeared.

Nora cries too readily, I think. She once broke down when her grandmother simply asked if her foot still hurt. And even though, as a child, I was even more sensitive than she is now, I am rarely the most patient or understanding parent when she wails to the point where she has to stop to catch her breath. In fact, I become so riddled with anxiety that she could smell it simmering in my chest, fueling her tear tank further, I am sure. I was on the verge of hurting her feelings that night with my honesty, and I really, really didn’t want to, because I really, really didn’t want to deal with one of her episodes that could eat into the alone time I was looking forward to. After an entire month of holiday festivities, I needed some child-free time to put the house back in order so that we all could resume normal life. I needed to empty my bedroom of all the gift wrap paper and bows, locate permanent homes for the girls’ new toys, and throw out dead poinsettias. So as Nora and I removed her pillows and turned over her comforter, I thought that maybe if I didn’t answer her, she would let the subject pass.

“Come on, let’s get under the covers and read our books!” I said, lifting Erin up onto her sister’s bed. Erin happily situated herself in between my legs, running her small warm hands up and down them in small caresses. But when she saw Nora planting herself beside me, she scrambled to sit in between the two of us.

“Who made the bed, Momma?” Nora asked.

“Your grandmother.” I opened the Pinkilicious book and asked which story in it that she wanted me to read.

“Why do you say that?”

I knew where this was going, and I knew that how soon I would be able to commence my alone time was well in my control. I had a couple of options. 1) I could be dishonest and tell her that I was joking, that I knew all along she had made her bed. Ha-ha, I punked you, Momma, she would retort with a satisfying, deep chuckle. 2) I could cushion the truth and tell her that she and her grandmother must have made the bed together. 3) I could be completely honest but risk jeopardizing the entire night for myself, but, perhaps, help her?

Unlike when Nora bursts into a cry that does not make sense to me, I am patient when she talks to me about her sadness. Lately, she has done a lot of this. A few weeks ago, Erin came down with pink eye and was placed on a new antibiotic. Because I feared that an adverse reaction might occur in the middle of the night, I brought her to my bed for observation. Sometime later that night, though, Nora wandered to my room, and I invited her to join us. She was not, however, content with sleeping to one side of her younger sister, insisting that her place was the center of the bed. Erin, who had been enjoying snuggling with me, was not in agreement and fought to maintain her position, which caused Nora some tears. I shared Erin’s stance on the whole matter, but my heart hurt for Nora, who, I believe, would pick me over everyone else almost anytime. So, why, she must sometimes wonder, can’t my mom love me the same way? Nevertheless, I had to tell her that she would need to return to her room if she was not happy with where we put her. “Momma,” she whispered over Erin’s head, “when you talk like that, it feels like no one wants to play with me.”

On the night Nora interrogated me about her bed, I decided on my response. “I said Lok Yeah made it because it looked very neat.”

“I can make my bed neat.”

“Not that neat, my love,” I said.

Nora’s bottom lip quivered as she sat up and kneeled beside Erin. “Momma,” she said matter-of-factly, “you made me sad.”

“I don’t mean to make you sad. I don’t ever want to make you feel sad.”

“But you said that Lok Yeah does a better job than me.”

“Well, she does make the bed better,” I said.

“That is not nice. When you say things like that, you make me sad.”

I am proud of Nora for many reasons, but her ability to unequivocally state her feelings is near the top. I dragged her onto my lap and cradled her, peering into her dark eyes that were black and round like the pit of a longan, and I contemplated my next few words. Lately, I’ve given a lot of consideration to mental health, or emotional health, as I like to call it. I can’t help but imagine and shudder at the hurt and disappointment that Nora — and Erin — will inevitably experience as they get older, and I wonder how I could protect them from such emotions. How will they overcome them? What will keep them from questioning themselves or their truths when someone comes along and admonishes them for their bed-making skill? I wish my love for them could be planted within them, almost like a seed, a tiny but determined seed that will grow and become a part of them, yielding deep roots to keep them up so that they don’t lose themselves to the harsh wind. As I swayed Nora on my lap and Erin by my side, I said, “I don’t ever mean to make you feel sad, Nora. I love you and Erin. That is the truth.”

That night I was able to store away the rolls of wrapping paper, ball up gift receipts and throw them out with the wilted poinsettias, and make myself a drink. The next morning, after she had gotten dressed for school, Nora asked me to enter her room. That morning the comforter was lying taut and flat, the hem of it hanging at a perfect horizontal line on three sides of the bed. The frilly pillows with rows of ribbons, and the pink heart one, and the purple sequin one were propped up neatly against the white iron headboard; only the stuffed unicorn was out of place.

It is bedtime, but Danith remains standing at the door of our bedroom. The light in the hallway frames his silhouette. Then, from our bed, I see his hand motioning for me to follow him, so I flip over the two blankets and gingerly slide out of bed, the cold chilling my bare ankles and feet. He grabs my fingers, and we tiptoe across the hall to the spare bathroom, where we stand at its window and gape down at our backyard. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he whispers.

“Yes,” I say. He circles an arm around my waist, and together we watch the snow fall.

Our backyard wakes up in the spring, when new leaves unfold like toddlers rising in the morning and when the Japanese magnolia spread their violet petals. But, on a winter night, when most of the trees have lost their leaves and snow has newly coated the ground and a silver grayness falls upon the property like a bedsheet, our backyard becomes sleepy. A cozy and dream-like kind of sleepy. Situated atop a hill, our two-story house allows us to view clearly the rolling hills that lead to the valley in the next town over — the faraway streetlights there make it seem that Christmas hadn’t already come and gone. Closer to home, we spy a car carefully crawling down our yet-to-be-plowed side street that ends in a cud-de-sac. The snow tonight is especially fresh and powdery, and it is everywhere.

“The flakes are so huge,” I say to Danith as my gaze pulls away from the car and to the snow falling outside our window. They drift down like rice paper crumbs. I heard that there are no two snowflakes alike. Have scientists actually researched this topic? And what was their reason for studying it? It seems that it would have been a waste of funding. Regardless, I find that conclusion hard to believe. In existence are so many, many snow crystals. So many. Just look at my yard. How could there not be two snowflakes alike? My eyes follow a crystal that is large enough that I can actually see the arms of it. I follow it until I can no longer, but I know that somewhere in my yard it lies with the other snowflakes, securing its place. And there I let it rest as my thoughts return to our Baby Erin who is sleeping in the bassinet beside our bed.

Very soon I will lift Erin, and while she is still peacefully sleeping, I will remove the sleep sack off her, carefully pull her legs out of her jammies, and change her diaper. Then I will carry her to the glider and place a bottle to her mouth, all while her eyes stay closed. I often take selfies of her and me at this time of the night and send them to our lovely gestational carrier.

Erin is three months old now. She weighed 6lbs 12oz and measured 20.5in at birth. She was born ferociously hungry, gulping down the colostrum and formula until she fell into a slumber that kept her from eating the following day. She was a strong newborn whose neck did not wobble and whose arms clung to me as though she were the baby chimpanzee I had wanted as a child. She has a soft dimple on her right cheek. She wakes up smiling (and, sometimes, before she falls asleep). And, sometimes, while she is asleep. When I press my face to her belly, she unabashedly giggles. While waiting for her arrival last year, I was worried for Erin. How would she view her place in our lives? She would be one of four children, one of two living daughters. When I had learned that she was a girl, my heart dropped a bit. If she were a boy, she would at least be of a different gender from her sister Nora. Speaking of Nora, we had waited fourteen years to bring her home, and only two for Erin. Would Erin ever believe our desperation for her?

At the window, I tell Danith that I want to wake up our girls to show them the snow. The ginormous flakes are beginning to stick to the tree branches, and white glistening mounds are beginning to form on the small hill where Danith had installed a wooden porch swing for me over fifteen years ago. The irony that I can see the depth and dimensions of our backyard better in the winter than in the summer astounds me. Danith tells me that I should wake up the girls. His response does not surprise me. I wonder if he remembers that at about this time four years ago, he and I were entangled in almost the same position, peering out at the snow in our yard, certain that our children were there. I tell Danith that I need to feed Erin now.

Back in our room, I open the bathroom door and leave it slightly ajar so that light from it lets me pace around our suite without tripping. After I warm the bottle in hot water and change Erin, I set her on my lap in the gliding chair, and cradle her head and neck in the crook of one arm. She is sleeping as she begins to suck on the nipple of the bottle. I can hear her soft suckle. I want to take my lips to hers. This type of feeding is called a dream feed; I assume it is because the baby is dreaming (sleeping) while eating. It is intended to reduce middle-of-the-night wakings, allowing the parent more sleep. I, however, give Erin the dream feed so that I could hold her while I am fully awake and am able to savor this alone time with her. After she finishes the bottle, I waltz around the room with her until she burps.

I sit back down in the glider and set Erin flat against me. Her plump head rests under my chin. She has her arms splayed out across my chest. Her legs are tucked under her bum, which I rub with one hand. My other hand pats her head that is not at all perfectly smooth. I stroke the warm band across the back, where her fine hair had shed. I trace my fingers along the skull bones around the fontanelle. I caress what feels like crests and crevices. I squeeze her body, and I half believe that I could swallow her if I gave it a try. I am overwhelmed by the weight of her flesh, how it sits on me, adding to who I am. I thank her for being here. I thank her for being a daughter. She suddenly whimpers and buries one arm under her face, and then she is sound asleep again. I feel that I ought to set her back in the bassinet and return to bed myself. Instead, I press my lips to the crown of her head and quietly cry. Nothing about her is a dream. She is real. She only feels like a dream.

The guest room never gets completely dark, even when all the lamps are turned off at bedtime. Light from the poles outside filters in through the sheer curtains so that the yellow-painted walls are glowing white. While lying in its bed, I can discern the outline of the large twig wreath hanging on a wall, the maple dresser and mirror, and the closet doors. And then, closer to me, the tip of Nora’s nose, and her forehead, and her hands with her fingers splayed on the bedsheet.

I began sleep-training Nora when she was one year old, against Danith’s and his mom’s wishes. Determined, I squatted outside her bedroom door, with the baby monitor beside me, blocking my ears to her screams and timing the length of her crying. Sleep-training a baby can illicit heated arguments; normally, a person is either for it or against it. Believing that sleep impacted Nora developmentally, I wanted her to get enough of it, to do it on a regular schedule, and to do it independently. I spoke with friends and sought the internet for the best way to train her, and after poring over the different methods, I gleaned from most of them one commonality: be consistent. Basically, this means that if I choose not to go into Nora’s room on day one after she has been crying for ten minutes, then I should choose not to go into her room on day two after she has been crying for ten minutes. Veering from consistency would most undoubtedly confuse her, causing even more frustration and tears. As I listened to her angry cries, my internal struggles forced me to question myself: was Nora wailing because she was sick, did Danith not think I loved her as much as he did, and would she wonder if I had abandoned her? Ultimately, I answered “no” to those questions. After a few nights of setting her in her crib, shutting off the lights and closing the door behind me, and not going back in even if she teared up, Nora began sleeping soundly through the night. Then, a couple of months later, we experienced a setback. Re-training ensued, and resulted in multiple cycles of success and regression. When she began talking, she yelled, “Momma, get baby out!” My heart steeled itself against her pleas. Quality sleep was necessary not just for her, but for me, and for Danith and his mom, even if they insisted that it was not. I had witnessed Nora’s ability to sleep deeply and without interruptions, in her own bed and without my help, so I knew it was possible. I could not allow my heart to soften and undo the achievement that she and I had made together.

Nora doesn’t sleep with us (and sometimes just me) regularly. On the nights she deserts her bed and surfaces at ours, she would say, “Baby want to sleep with momma.” When she is in bed with me, she oftentimes pushes her feet into my stomach or, if I am turned away from her, my back. And sometimes, she squirms around until she lies perpendicularly to me, her doughy legs crossing my thighs. It is not unusual that I lie awake when I am with her, such as I am tonight, watching her and listening to her breathing, the sound of which is reminiscent of snoring. I flatten the palm of my hand on hers. Her fingers are fleshy and warm, their mere diminutive size as evidence for how real she is. My heart hurts a tinge at the thought that these fingers will one day have calluses, and measure longer than mine. Tonight, I straighten her body and pull her into me, burrowing my arm under her neck and running it down along her torso and legs. With my nose in her hair, I think about Daffy and Kiri.

I remember securing Daffy, and then later Kiri, in the crook of my arm. I remember that short span of time on the hospital bed, when my mind wandered from reality. My baby was sleeping beside me, so nothing was amiss. I remember another moment, too, the moment when I lost my breath, felt cold, and wished that my last breath had been my final, for I was so, so afraid of what was about to come. In that moment I was seized by the inevitable: the weight of my baby would remain only as a memory. I hear and read it frequently: things happen for a reason, things will work out in the end. I hold contempt for such phrases, and sometimes I even become verbally defiant when someone says them to me. No, I don’t think so. If things had worked out in the end, I would have all of my children. But, lately, I am second-guessing myself.

Nora loves me with a devotion that was foreign to me as a child. “Even after you scold her, she wants to be consoled only by you,” Danith’s mom had pointed out about Nora. It is true. Nora’s father and grandmother coddle her in a way that I don’t. I am the one to leave her to her tantrum, to deny her one more minute of television before dinner, and to insist that she picks up her shoes when I instruct her to. Still, even after I reprimand her for throwing her spoon across the table and after she apologizes, she wants me — me only — to hold her. How does she know that my love for her does not ebb? I doubt that I am any more magnanimous than any parent who simply cherishes her child. I was the adult in our home who left her to cry on those sleep-training nights. She must have some recollection of that time. So, why does she make me, with my many imperfections, feel worthy of her love? Her devotion softens me and confuses me. Lately, such as tonight, I’ve taken to sliding out of my bed, creeping into her room, lifting her from her toddler bed while she is in her slumber, and carrying her to the guest room, where I set her on the bed and then crawl into it to lie beside her.

Guilt nags at me. I was so ardent about sleep-training Nora, and now I am potentially undoing the challenge she had triumphantly overcome. But I remember that short span of time with Daffy, and then later Kiri, in the hospital. I would have given anything not to part with my baby then. And now I don’t have to. Here is my opportunity to hold my baby the way I had wanted to. Could there be a middle ground for my dilemma? I consider those infuriating phrases. Could there be some truth to them? A couple of people have said to me that things have worked out for me in the end. Have they? Believing those well-meaning people would mean that Daffy and Kiri were merely stepping stones to Nora. The idea of this riddles me with further guilt. They are not opening acts for anyone, including Nora. But without them, Nora would not be here. Daffy and Kiri occupy my heart the same way that Nora does, deeply and without interruptions. The only difference is that they will never again occupy my arms. I remain certain of this: If everything had worked out in the end, I would have all of my children. But I am certain of the following, too. If not for Daffy and Kiri, lying beside Nora tonight would not be possible.