Interrupted

I am lying on the couch with Lily in my arms.  She looks up at me from beneath her fiery red bangs with eyes that scream 'I feel like I just got hit by a truck'.  Her shirt is wet from saliva and snot and is damp enough to stick to her body.  She tries to raise her head up to look around, but thinks better of it and lies back down, safe and cozy and comfortable on my chest.  There are a pile of books on the floor where we read earlier, dirty dishes from breakfast scattered on the counter, and  ingredients for muffins I thought about starting earlier in the morning.  We snuggle together for an hour or so, until it's time to go pick up Luke from Grandma's house. 

All mommas out there know that when a toddler gets sicks, the little bubble that is your world stops and survival mode instantly comes into play. Playdates are cancelled.  Leftovers are eaten for the third day in a row. Laundry piles up.  The everyday routine is interrupted and pushed aside, if just for a day or two.  

When a little gets a fever or a cold or the flu, it requires extra work and time and patience from everyone.  The child is feeling rundown and just plain awful and the parents are tired from late night rocking and the clean up that comes from the messiness of a toddler sickness.

As Lily and I cuddled together on the couch this week, to my surprise, I wasn't thinking about the laundry that needed to be folded or the dishes on the counter.  My type A personality was trying hard to shout at me to stop wasting time and get up and do something, but I decided Lily was much more important that a clean house or fancy muffins.  I tried really hard to tune out my home and focus on my girl.  This little human needed me: my body to hold her tight, my words to reassure her, and my mind to think of what she might need at any given moment.  

I was all her's in that hour on the couch and it's something I know I will never, ever regret.