Sunday Afternoon

You know what's worse than being sick when you're nursing? Being sick when you're nursing with a cold that the Husband lovingly brought home and shared.

Niiiiiiiiiiice, huh?

Anyway, I'm sitting in the floor of the Boy's room and I was rocking him to sleep for what feels like the frillionth time and thinking about motherhood, so if you'll all indulge me--and if it's too much for you just blame the slight fever I've had all day.

So, I'm rocking the Boy who starts out wide wake, in his drooly pajamas from last night (because I am sick and the Husband sees no point in putting him in clean clothes when he's just going to drool all over them anyway) and he's all snug in his super soft car blanket with his pacifier in his mouth, eyes wide open and we're rocking away and I'm looking at his little face and thinking how he's growing and changing and Heaven be Merciful, he's starting to have a hint of little boy about him and not so much baby and I'm thinking how odd it is to be a mother.

After all, it's my job to keep him fed and healthy and clothed and reasonably content. But it's also my job to remember what his face looks like at every stage. It's my job to remember how soft his skin is and how he likes to be rocked to sleep. I need to remember his different laughs and what makes him crack up. I need to remember all the weird things we tried to calm him like sitting him in the bouncy seat on elevated surfaces (like the table or the bed--the kid loves to be tall) or how he loved to hang upside down off of the couch like a bat.

And someday he will come to me and want to know all of the names that the Husband and I called him when he was small and it will be my job to say, Stinker, Boy, Son, Little Love, Mon Petit Prince, Moy Malenkii, Moy Ciin, Mon Petit Fils, Pooper, Droolmeister, Puddles, Cameron-Man, I-Love-This-Boy, Cameron-Stop-Spleening-Me, Why-Won't-You-Sleep, Little Wrinkle, but mostly The Dude.

I'm watching his eyelids droop and pop open, droop and pop open and hoping that I remember all the things I love about every age so that someday when he asks me to tell him stories about when he was little I have plenty of happy, funny, quirky things to tell him and not just how I judged a good day from a bad day by the number of onesies he went through, or how long his naps were.

I think I need more Tylenol. Also probably more water and a nap.

I know it's terribly morbid and melancholy of me but I find myself picking up the Boy and holding him and rocking him and thinking how quickly the time is passing. He's getting so big so fast that I almost feel like he's leaving me behind. All of this melancholy is compounded by the fact that in all rationality I just didn't like being a mother so much, not at first, when I was sore from being cut open and he was crying crying crying all of the time. And now that I'm arriving at a place where I like being a mother, he's growing so fast that it almost feels like I won't really have time to enjoy it before he's out the door and on with the rest of his life.

I know. I'm over-reacting, I'm descending posthaste into sentimentality, I really need to go take that Tylenol and lay down. I need to go kiss my boy one more time while he's too small to run away.