A sick day took him.

He didn’t need to take a sick day. After all, he had nowhere to be, but with me. He had no way to call in sick, unless you count him coming up to me on Thursday afternoon, hands held out dramatically, with a glorious, thick streamer of snot hanging from his nose, saying, “Um. Mommy? I have a snot.”

he indeed, had a snot. more than one, in fact. lots of them.

Thursday night was full of the stuff nightmares are made of: he puked up part of his dinner because he was gagging on mucous, came to bed with me after his second screaming awakening made it clear I’d be running to his room all night long otherwise, kicked me repeatedly for the next 8 hours, woke at least once an hour screaming and crying, telling me it hurt and yelling “NO NO NO”, accused me of making his throat hurt (ouch, dude), refused to drink anything, and rounded it all out by peeing in the bed in the morning and then telling me to get up and make his breakfast.

I was so tired. And so very grumpy. Then, while I was peeling his wet underpants off of him, I suddenly smiled. I thought about how I had patted his back over and over again all night long. It reminded me so much of long nights when he was this little kid baby:

That was March ’08. I can’t believe it was that long ago. It seems like just yesterday.

But yesterday was forever ago. And it will never be again.

I looked at him, shivering before me after I got him out of the wet clothing. He looked back at me solemnly, and then reached his arms around my neck, climbing into my lap. He held on tight, snuggling his head into the curve of my neck, and we just rocked for a little while, together.

I mostly think that colds are from the very Devil himself; they are miserable, horrible things that torture us and make us feel as though a close cousin of death has crawled inside our faces and set up camp. And when our kids are sick, it is the worst. It is so awful to watch them suffer.

But sometimes I experience these tiny moments when I wonder if they are some kind of weird gifts to parents – obviously not in the times of worry and pain, but during those moments when our kids slow down and just want to be held again, loved again, rocked in our arms, or when they just nap in our laps again. These are gifts, even though given in sickness, and it is these little capsules of memories gone suddenly burst open, and a chance to teleport to another moment in time again, for just awhile, that make me smile even as he sniffles.