I woke up to someone’s foot in my face and the distinct sensation of being unable to move my left arm.
“Whose foot is this?” I mumbled, my voice muffled against what I suspected was a very small heel.
“Killian’s,” Mal said groggily from somewhere to my right.
“It’s in my face.”
“He is very flexible.”
I tried to shift position and discovered that not only was Killian’s foot in my face, but he was somehow starfished across both of us, taking up the entire bed despite being roughly the size of a moderately large pillow. One arm was flung across Mal’s chest,the other was somehow behind my neck, and he was drooling. On Mal’s chest.
“Mmmph... cookies...” Killian mumbled in his sleep.
“He’s dreaming about cookies,” I observed. “And I can’t feel my arm.”
“He is lying on it.”
I finally managed to extract myself enough to look at the situation. Killian was indeed spread out like a starfish, completely diagonal across the bed, taking up maximum space with minimum body mass. It was actually impressive.
“How is he taking up the entire bed? He’s tiny.”
“It is certainly a gift,” Mal said, and I could hear the smile in his voice even though I couldn’t see his face past our son’s sprawled body.
Five minutes later, Killian’s eyes snapped open and he sat up in one motion, full of energy at a volume that should be illegal before 7am. It was as if he sensed we were awake and didn’t want to waste one single second.
“GOOD MORNING!”
I winced. “Inside voice, baby.”
“THIS IS MY INSIDE VOICE!”
“That is your outside voice,” Mal said, sitting up and wiping the drool off his chest with a napkin.
“Oh. Sorry.” Killian’s voice dropped to a stage whisper that was somehow louder than his normal speaking voice. “Is this better?”
“Sure,” I lied, because I was not going to argue so early in the morning.
An hour later, after breakfast and getting dressed and Killian asking approximately seven hundred questions about where we were going and why he couldn’t come, we were trying to leave him with Sorcha.
Keyword: trying.
“I wanna come!” Killian protested, clinging to my leg like a very determined barnacle.
“Not this time, sweetheart. You’re staying with Grandma.”
“But I’ll be SO good! The goodest! I promise!”
“You will have more fun here,” Mal said, attempting to pry him off my leg.
“No I won’t! You guys get to do all the cool stuff and I have to stay here and be bored.”
“We’re just going to boring meetings,” I said.
Killian looked up at me with those big eyes that were far too clever for a four-year-old. “Then why can’t I come if it’s boring?”
He had a point. Damn it.
Sorcha, bless her, stepped in. “I will give you cookies.”
