Even when.

We let Ziggy stay up to watch the Super Bowl. He asked if the "white team is the Steelers, is that because they steal the ball?"

During the "rock show" we danced in the living room with the television turned up loud. Ziggy and his father waved peace wands in the air and then Zig got out his guitar. He liked it a whole lot, but wasn't at all sure about a rocker being called The Boss.

We ate buffalo chicken dip and drank gingerale and played hotwheels and a complicated but funny game with two spiky balls, one bouncy earth ball, a tiny piano and an as yet unopened roll of wrapping paper.

It got late. The boy was tired. He and I have both been battling bacterial conjunctivitis and its attendant congestion, goop and discomfort. I do loads and laundry a day and handwash dishes and our hands until mine are chapped and bleeding.

As a co-sleeping family, I've had to take special care with making sure we have clean sheets and especially that the pillow cases stay with their assigned face and also that we don't just rub our eyes and noses at random. I remind Ziggy about the rubbing a lot. And three times a day when I have to put the eye drops in, he says, "Hold me down, mama. Gently." He was very afraid the first few days and would fight with his hands and try to knock the drops away and itch his swollen irritated eyes.

Tonight after much effort we got him into football pajamas, got his teeth brushed, got him medicated and tucked in for stories. I filled the humidifier and his thermos of water, then went on one last errand to get his soup thermos, which Ziggy just likes nearby to keep his water thermos company.

Cradled in his father's arms, our boy looked at me and asked, "Mama? Even when I rub my eyes, do you love me?"

Of course, I told him. Even when. I will love you no matter what.

"My love will always stay with you, Mama," he told me.

And my love will always stay with you, my love, I told him.

The three of us lay in the dark and Ziggy listened while his father and I reminisced about our honeymoon and my getting locked into the bathroom as a child and one time when my little sister knocked off a woman's wig at the fair and so on....