Reminders

Boo has been ill for almost 72 hours.

We're talking blowing from both ends ill.

We've been pushing pedialyte and holding a head over a toilet so often we've become old hands at wiping his mouth and moving our hands before the next round starts.

I lost my temper with the pediatrician from our office (not our regular ped, whom I adore) and got meds to stop the vomiting. Finally. And they seem to be helping. My son woke up this morning and no longer resembles a concentration camp survivor.

Last night, after meds and exhaustion settled the three of us in our bed for the night, I got a reminder of the baby Boo used to be.

When he was little and needed comfort, he would start stroking me from my face to my breast and back again. Last night, laying with him curled to me, he gently rubbed his little hand over my face, neck, and chest, just as he had when he was small enough for me to carry without bodily harm.

We lay there, his sleepy blue eyes staring into my worried and weary brown ones, while he soothed himself. I don't know if he was remembering me holding him to the breast to nurse him, or me snuggling him up when he was upset, or even me carrying him in a pouch most of the time.

All I do know is my not quite three year old remembers that I brought him comfort and he sought it once more in his time of need.

After he fell asleep, I lay there, watching him quietly weeping from relief that he was resting and from memories of a sweet baby that is now an active little boy.

It's moments like that, bittersweet and fleeting, that I remember why I became a mother, and why I have the best wee little heathens in the world.