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Aidan had a bit of a head cold over the weekend.  No coughing, just congestion, a runny nose, low appetite, and occasional vomiting from a tummy upset by all the cold mucus in it.  He is on the mend now and is running me ragged like his normal self.  He was especially clingy over the few days of illness.  Not surprising, yet very sweet.  It is tiring when your child is sick.  Very little sleep for them and very little for you.  He did a bit of sleeping with us off and on over the nights he was sick.  I laid him down for a nap one of the days in his own bed and he emerged not very long thereafter.  I was laying in my bed not really sleeping but trying to at least rest if I could not catch a nap. 

 He approached the bed and while rubbing his eyes said sweetly, “Snuggle with Mama.” 

“Of course buddy.  Come snuggle in with Mama.”  I helped him scale up into bed with me, got him snuggled into me, and gave him kisses.  I whispered quietly, “Mama’s here.  Mama snuggle.”

 He smiled sweetly and melted into me.  Even though he was terribly congested, his breathing seemed to clear a bit and he was asleep in less than a minute.  He slept like a rock for the next 2 hours.  I laid there half listening to political talk on MSNBC but mostly taking him in.  The softness of his skin, feeling the whisper of his hair against my cheek and feeling his now relaxed breathing against me. 

Then it hit me.  There is going to be a day that Aidan doesn’t want or need me to do this for him.  It made me kind of sad.  Those moments with your children are what make the tantrums, sleepless nights, snotty noses, etc all worth it.  But it also made me happy.  There will be a day Aidan doesn’t need me.  Not in the current sense of the word anyway.  What more could I have hoped for when he was born so small and so early but that he would grow up and carve his own path in life?

I pulled out a poem my mother-in-law sent to me when Aidan was first born.  I read it carefully and it filled me up.  It speaks so beautifully to our purpose as parents.  It makes me proud to be his mom.  I am excited to see what kind of person he becomes and what his future holds. 

But not yet.  For now I’ll take all the snuggles I can get.

Here is the poem:

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.