I got you

It feels like a different lifetime, yet just yesterday when I would let you lay on me at 3am because you were only fourteen weeks old and it was the only way you would fall asleep.

It seems like a million years ago, yet just the other day when I would let you lay on me at 2h40am. When you were almost two, but your sinuses were acting up so you couldn't sleep unless you slept a little elevated.

Now you are turning five years old and you cannot seem to shake this damn cough. It's been what seems like months of on-again-off-again colds and flu. You have had to learn what gluten is and why you are not allowed to have toasted cheese anymore. And yet, with all the adaptations and courses of medication, here we are at 1h48am, neither of us having had any sleep. I calm myself while I try to soothe you as you violently kick off the blankets out of pure frustration.

Then I remember her. That new mom sleeping upright at 3am and that not-so-new mom, clutching some extra toddler weight in an aching arm at 2h40am just so you can get some sleep. I recall a million years ago. And all of a sudden you are fourteen weeks, two years and five years old all at once as I yet again pull you onto me and the three of us get to compare our tired.

It has been 53 minutes. 53 minutes with no coughing. 53 minutes of feeling you relax and fall deeper and deeper into pure cough-less bliss.

It is 2am and I will be laying you down now. Elevated and onto something that closely resembles my body. Because while this is the most amazing agony I have ever experienced, this mama needs to rest in anticipation of the unknown hiding in the dark of this night.

L