Potatoes bake in the oven. Pork chops simmer in their gravy on the stove. The washer beats a down-home rhythm while the dryer sends forth a wonderful, warm, clean-laundry smell that mixes homogeneously with all the others. Willie Nelson lazily croons "Old Buttermilk Sky" in the background, and Liberty proudly shouts, "Mommy, yook! I'm upside down!"

From my living room vantage point -- sitting in the old, soft, rocking chair my mother bought for me when Liberty was born -- a content powder blue sky and wispy puffs of clouds beckon me through the glass patio doors. The leaves of two trees meet up across the way, splashing gold-red and yellow-green together. The sun creates a perfect shadowy pattern on the wall of the apartment building across from ours.

Willie starts in on "Moon River." I glance towards my feet where Mercy grins up at me, the edge of a plastic five from the refrigerator door peeks between her lips. I fish it from her mouth and blow a quick raspberry onto her chubby right cheek. She giggles and then claps when she sees Liberty's somersault.

The cream and pumpkin neighborhood cat, Tommy, peers in our screen door and mrrows plaintively, willing us to feed him again. The girls both meow back at him and rush to the screen calling "Sitty!" They scare him and disappointedly call, "Come back, sitty! Come back!"

Willie switches to "To Each His Own," and my thoughts turn to my Own. I smile, remembering a conversation we had last night and begin day-dreaming.

Daddy will be home any minute.