It's too close right now to look on how far my children will do. They have just left their Barbies on the stairs and stars in their hair, still fall from above the room where they sleep in their beds, cheeks still aglow from their hearts—too quick to record the beat, as their feet glided sweet over the books tumbled from shelves just beyond their tiny hand's reach. I watched and wondered, as they plundered through kiosks and trees, where their choosing would lead, each, past their bedposts on to cobblestone streets to the plaza, down willowy paths, toward the hammocks, the slide, as my arms reached to grasp them. They swing in my mind as if yesterday could, by remembering, bring up the way that they were, right through to this time as I turn my thoughts back round to the way that my children still did. The pillow just hid the last tooth that was lost, but saved by the fairy. That gossamer host who came in the night and rushed off like a ghost. She's still there in the window looking in as they sleep, waiting for the prattle of ever falling teeth. I imagine one day, the box where their scattered teeth lay will open to tell me of all she had done to make the laughter ring out to be sung once again in my children's bed song, where nothing went awry or wrong. Of pea blossoms, tin soldiers, night fairies, and moss covered three-family in credenza on my lap filled with furrowing hands, legs against mine, heads against breasts, smiles against warnings of bedtime and rest, swerving and vying for one more second of borrowed wake time. There in our rocker, I wish the clock had not set so much pace on the morning light, which turned to night too soon for us to finish Goodnight Moon, to find the mouse too many times in the dark, out of sight, as I sung till twilight, feverish at times, Scarlet Ribbons, against their sweet smelling breath as it rose to meet my last kiss good night, as I crept out of their sight. What I see now from here are less days of that kind than I had in mind, but to bargain with time is a child's game, not mine. And the soft simple steps of my three little marias now burn bright on in the remembering of how I could in one fell swoop, mend their tearing, wipe the smearing through and through of kinder days and eager in their ways, now show me just how children do.