Dear Reese,
Last night. It’s 11 pm. You have tears and snot dripping down your face, and you look at me with red eyes. You wheeze. You breathe — one, two, then pause. Like your breath is caught. And I can’t tell what’s wrong.
I put my ear to your chest. My hand on your back. The lights are on, I’m looking at you. Upset or hurt or something worse. I watch carefully, so unsure. If I make a mistake — if I say this is nothing and it’s not — what will that cost?
You wheeze again, then breathe. I suck snot from your nose and wipe it from your face. I offer you a bottle you do not want. I turn the lights off and hold you in the armchair in the dark until you settle. When I put you back in your bed, you do not settle.
In the end, I lay next to you in the queen bed with our old pillow barrier up. My hand is on your back, feeling you breathe. It takes me a long time to fall asleep.
We’re up at 5 am, but we’re okay. I give you Tylenol before daycare and Tylenol before bed tonight. No fever, but a little elevated temp. Even your teacher says the snot is probably from the teething. She says you had a good day, but didn’t much care for your meatloaf at lunch.
After dinner, you crawl all the way from the playground, across the blacktop, through our door, and up the stairs. You laugh when I sing “Rock-a-bye-baby” after the bath. I keep wiping your nose.
I push your bedtime back twenty minutes tonight, and you fall straight asleep.
Love,
Mama