Our piglet has a snuffley snout.

all night: ziggy coughed and cried. sniffed and sneezes and tossed and turned.

his father walked him across the floors to sleep near midnight.

my watch was the remainder of the dark hours. walking. holding. slinging. singing. talking.

poor throat scritchy scratching. poor eyes glassing over.

poor snuffley snout.


this morning, mama booty rose early, debating the merits of yet another pediatric visit while sweeping floors.

noises from the bedroom. from the doorway i see one very tired daddy booty snoring away, and one tenacious baby booty crawling to the foot of the bed, looking for his mother.

scooping up my little nursling, i marvel that during this latest round of sickness, he has learned to pull up to sitting from his commando crawl and at last, he is releasing the pincer grasp-- which means: the cheerio or the bite of banana makes it not only between his thumb and index finger, but into his mouth, too.

poor little fevery piglet.

nothing, but nothing so heartbreaking as the inability to take one's child's pain and discomfort away.

cleaning, cooking, organizing all will again take a back seat to cuddling up my boy baby. reading Owl Babies for the umpteenth time. stacking rings, snapping beads, "cooking" soup of rubber ducks, keys and other small things by stirring it all together with a wooden spoon in my piglet sized stainless pot.

he'll be a baby so short a time, really. already, it is fleeting..... i have had him outside my body for almost exactly the time i had him inside.

my cup runneth over.