what it is being twirled around the littlest pinky...

It's not easy going to bed at 12.30 A.M, waking up at 3 A.M to feed someone who just doesn't get it that she really does NOT need milk, trying to somehow get few more hours of shut-eye but still hearing the mumbled chatter from the other room and finally giving up the fight and just waking up...I don't know how I do it but most days I wonder why I do it...

• Every morning as soon as you wake up, you stand in your crib and call "Amma" loudly. And when I act deaf and don't get up, you switch to your soft voice and coo "Ammi, Ammi" wth your arm outstretched to reach me... could this be it?
  
• Nowadays when I come to pick you up, you smile ever so sweetly and say, "Amma Kaapi" and I see myself in you...maybe this?
• After months of feigning nonchalance to everything I try to teach you, you looked at your favourite Pluto, pulled his ears and said "Bluto". Oh! how I trilled for hours on the phone to everyone I knew...how about that?
•  The way you close my mouth when I sing you a lullaby and then continue humming 'Hot cross buns' or just coo 'lalalala' in your own tune...this should be it!
• How you run to the door every morning and stick your face to the glass pane as you watch your Appakins leave for work and then tell your grandparents on the phone, "Appa aapeas"...

I can go all day and still not have the best reason. And when I lie exhausted next to you after one of those middle-of-the-night meltdowns and you try to push me off the bed in your efforts to cuddle closer, all I can think of is the long sleepless night and your really stinky milky breath. But then you do something that completely takes me by surprise - you wrap one arm around my neck and smile. A smile I could die for...all while still asleep.

That I guess is why I want to do all of this. Again. Forever.