Monday Morning

It's still dark outside as i creep past the slumbering children sharing their queen sized bed. Molls sleeps on the inside so that she can't escape to daddy's bed in the middle of the night - Cai has never looked more like a teenager than she does at this moment with her blankets covering her face & her body looking all long & lanky sprawled out across the outside edge of her bed.
Our house smells like the hazelnut coffee that Neil has already brewed. He's sitting by the fireplace checking emails on his blackberry.
i take my seat opposite him & put my feet up beside his.
i'm wearing blue denim maternity overalls borrowed from a friend, my 1972 roller rink t-shirt & flipflops. He's wearing a pristine dress shirt & pants that i had to hem 3 times before they were good enough.
i hate that i can see his suitcase sitting in the hallway from where we're sitting. Away, again this week - i know he's trying to get in all his travelling before the baby comes... but i miss him.
There's no need to exchange many words as the sky begins to change hue from black, to dusky grey. We get up simultaneously to get our coffee - his black, mine with cream & sugar - & as we return to our chairs that face each other & share an ottoman, little messy haired children begin to make their appearances one by one.
The minutes are slipping by too quickly - i know he'll soon be gone.

Is this what growing old together means?

These yielding moments in front of the fireplace?
The peace that comes just being in each other's company?
The familiar quiet - the longing in absence - the smell of 'home'?
i hope so...
Already, it's hard to remember a time when i wasn't crazy in love with the man sitting across from me. As these good years stack up on themselves - & our children grow - & our feet continue to share the ottoman between us, may there always be another monday morning with hazelnut coffee in the early glow of sunrise...