Ruby has been sick for a few days. She woke with a fever on Monday morning and it rose throughout the day, dark circles deepening under her eyes.
Together, we laid on the couch and watched PBS Kids. It's been so long since she's sunk her entire weight into me and laid her head down for more than a minute or two. Since we don't nurse anymore, she's been all go-go-go--sometimes at naptime I get a little cuddle, or she'll sit on my lap when we read books. I laid there, smelling her little toddler head, stroking her hair, adjusting the blankets (blay-kett on, mama! blay-kett off, mama!), wrapping my arms around her. For two days. The first day, she fell asleep on me at naptime and it took all my will power to carry her up the stairs and lay her in her crib, but I had to because I had deadlines and angry clients.
Near the end of the second day, she started to perk up a bit. Halfway through a show, apropos of nothing (that's the joy of toddlers, is it not?), she looked up at me from her snuggled-in nook in the crook of my arm, put her hand on my cheek, and said, "Mama?"
Me: "Yes, baby?"
Ruby: "You awe my sun-sine, my own-ee sun-sine...."
She suddenly looked a little self-conscious and smiled.
I encouraged her on by singing "You make me..."
And she sang "hap-py!" in her little toddler crackle. And smiled, turned around, and snuggled back in.
This week has been hard. She has been fussy and sick and I've been worried. I've been over my head with work stuff, staying up late to try to tread water. William is in his busiest week of the season. We are stretched really thin with time and energy and good will.
But I won't, ever for a second, regret watching "Cat Hat" and "Tiger" and Wild Kratts for two days straight on the couch with my baby. For just smelling her head and wrapping my arms around her and adjusting the blay-ketts just so.
Her vocabulary is exploding. Her imagination is starting to run wild. Her legs are getting long. She asks to walk instead of be carried. Everything I try to do for her, she says "I self! I self!"
I knew it would go fast. Everyone warned me.
I am totally going to be that mother doing embarrassing things to and for her baby long after she is a baby.
I am so damn lucky to have this child, who makes me laugh, who makes me cry, who shatters my heart, who inspires me to be a kinder, gentler, more patient person, who gives me a purpose beyond anything else I have ever known.
I hope she always knows the fierceness with which I love her, and that if she is ever sick—9 months, 9 years, 29 years, 99 years—I will always curl up on the couch with her and stroke her hair and I will never, ever want to get up.
