She scrambles over me, hops off her bed, grabs her baby from where she'd earlier tossed her, then stands beside the bed cuddling her doll. I watch, amused, wondering if Ella is feeling guilty for forgetting her baby or for tossing her haphazardly into a basket earlier or maybe both.
Ella shifts the doll in her arms so that her baby is looking right at her, then brings her doll's face close to her own and whispers, "Are you ready for this? You're about to go really, really high!" With that, she throws her baby up, up, up high past me.
I guess Ella is trying to make bedtime fun for her baby?
Before her baby's head reaches the pillow, her baby's plastic, smiling face hits the wall with a loud thud. Then, like a basketball hitting the rim before sinking through the net, the baby finally lands on the pillow.
Ella looks horrified. I mean, what decent 4-year-old mother wouldn't, right?
Then, realizing I'm watching her, she plays it cool like this was her plan all along "She's fine," Ella tells me with a shrug. "She actually likes when I do that."
We are both smiling. She knows I'm not fooled. "You're lucky I didn't put you to bed that way when you were a baby, Ella Grace."
