Dear Reese,
You stir at 1 am and by 2:30 you’ve had half a bottle, your temperature checked (102.5°), and 3.75ml of grape acetaminophen squirted from a syringe into your mouth. I don’t lay you back down in your crib and instead set you on the queen bed in the corner of your room — the one I slept in for the first four months of your life so I could be as close as possible. Now I get into bed next to you, a barrier to the edge, and hold your hand until the medicine kicks in and you can fall back asleep.
You toss and turn and I mostly stay up and worry — about if I don’t wake if you start crawling straight off the edge of the bed, about how you’ll feel in the morning, about who will take care of you when I need to work, about work stress that finds a way to spin in my head since I am up anyway. We are both tired today.
This season of sickness is brutal — we’re on the third round of illness since New Year’s and I’m still coughing from when we were sick two weeks ago. I cross my fingers and reach for nasal spray and hand sanitizer.
You’re still feverish in the morning, though the meds lower your temperature by a degree or two most of the day. They take the edge off that there are a few smiles. Like when you find joy in pulling the books off the bottom row of the bookshelf. Or in the bath tonight when I twist the little hair you do have to stand straight up on your head. Before bed, I play with you on your bedroom floor, showing you how to crawl by crawling around myself and you laugh yourself silly. So you’ll be okay.
I work from the cottage while MorMor comes to spend the day with you but I’m home to you by 4 pm, and you fall asleep in my arms while I talk to her. When she leaves to join Cappi for a happy hour and dinner we were supposed to join, I sit on the couch with you in my arms and watch a show and breathe.
This part is so, so good.
I hate that I check work on my phone throughout the evening, but I love when you sit on my lap after your nap and I read you book after book. I know you’re not feeling well when you let me read to you for that long without getting restless. Someday we’ll read the good stuff—Grimm fairytales and Winnie-the-Pooh and Percy Jackson. For now, we cycle through board books: Where is Baby’s Belly Button? and I Am a Force of Nature and Hello, Reading!. I would read to you for hours if you wanted.
For now, sleep, darling. Tomorrow you’ll feel better.
Love,
Mama