Hana swings the door shut, looks around, and opens it again.  She smiles at me before crawling through.  Her eye, so swollen and pink yesterday, is perfect today.  Naked apart from a diaper, she crawls back into my room, swinging the door open and shut.

Downstairs the music to Cadence’s movie is blaring.  Hana coughs.  I look over my shoulder to make sure she isn’t choking.  She looks at me smiling, mouth empty.

“Are you okay?” I ask, though it’s clear that she is, and though she can’t answer back.

“Yeah,” says a small voice from the hallway.  “Mommy, I pooped.”

I scoot away from the card table I’ve been using as a desk and pry my butt from the folding chair I’ve been using as a desk chair.  The vinyl upholstery probably has permanent dents where I sit, but they’re hidden beneath a green comforter that serves as extra padding.

My brows sink, my mouth is set in a stern Mommy-means-business grimace.  Cadence waits on the other side of the baby gate, her hair in her eyes.  A blue renaissance, princess dress puckers at her waist, where the seam is unravelling.

“What?”

“Mommy, I pooped,” she repeats quietly.  She backs away from the gate with a guilty smile.  I coax her back, before hurdling the gate and dragging her back with me.  Potty training would a thing of the past if my head wasn’t always in the clouds, or wherever it is.

I fasten a diaper on her.  No more panties today.  And urge her to use the potty now, everytime, and forever.  She agrees.  We’ll see how long that lasts.

Hana waits in the hallway, wailing.  Her eyes scrunch up, her mouth parted and spread in a wide half circle.  Her eyes swell with the tears, making today’s recovery undetectable.  I scoop her to my shoulder.  She clings.  Babbles replace her cries, and she kicks of my stomach to play with her older sister.

My chair is angled towards me.  The comforter warm and inviting.  I sit back down, staring at the blinking cursor and a nearly completed page.