The house was still and quiet in the dark of an early morning. The vibration of Ian’s alarm enticed me out of sleep before the song ever started. He brushed my face gently with his hand, “Codi, are you going to get up?”
I shook my head and murmured my displeasure at needing to be awake at 6:15 on a Saturday morning—every Saturday morning. I felt a brief heaviness overcome me, not of exhaustion but of guilt. The self-inflicted sort of guilt all parents feel when they choose themselves—or anything—over their kids. But I’ve been at the parenting game long enough to know I wasn’t about to win the World’s Worst Mom title for missing one soccer game. Okay, it was the third game in a row, but still!
Regardless of how I was feeling about it, my daughter was still sound asleep beside me and had made it very clear the night before that she did NOT want to go to soccer in the morning. I thought I would let the beast—uh, I mean my little girl—sleep. Satisfied with my decision I closed my eyes.