Nine mornings out of ten look just like this in our apartment. Amelia found her way around my preference against costumes specific to a single character by asking Santa at the last minute for a Cinderella costume. The Santa veto. I had forgotten about that.

I worried that character-specific costumes would hinder her imagination, but she continues to add her own flair, like the blanket-converted-to-cape and ballerina-tutu-converted-to-princess-hair pictured above. Anyone who has stayed with us knows that Amelia generally emerges from her bedroom in the morning dressed in such a manner. Half the time she sleeps in costume.

My sleepy muttering, Let’s go play in the kitchen, is heard as, Let’s Play Kitchen, and both girls are off and running. The window still frames darkness when they begin pulling out small pans and wooden spoons, turning up the heat on their stove top. I turn on the kettle to brew a hot drink, gazing at the darkened windows across the garden and remembering a time when I slept past six o’clock. I sit at my writing table and the girls cook up dreams for the waking world while the day rises from its slumber.