Thinking, that's all: Dry

His dark, thick lashes have been falling heavily over his cornflower blue eyes for the past few days; he's been mega sick with some sort of virus, mostly like influenza, and his two and a half year old body doesn't know what to do with such an unwelcome intruder, so it keeps falling into pockets of rest that stretch over long hours during the day.



He's only wanted to snuggle, really, to have his small body pressed against the warmth of mine or his dad's for hours at a time.

I was a willing hostage in his embrace last night from 8:30 until 9 this morning.

Through his coughs, his whimpers, his stuffy breathing, he whispered pitifully a few razor words to my heart.

Mai mahhhmeee.

Oh, I am your mommy, baby boy, I am. And I pray, oh I pray, that God sends healing through your body and gives you buckets of energy in the morning.

And then, in the darkness, there are bursts of minutes stretched into half hour, drenched with his tears and sobs of frustration, that leave me feeling lost. Completely and utterly lost.

Because I know what would help him rest easy, rehydrate, calm down and nourish.

But it's gone dry.

All of my milk.

Not even a tiny trickle left for these dark nights filled with exhaustion and sickness.

I feel like Superman drained of my superpower.

My baby cling-wraps his arms around my neck, and I shed fat tears drops on his hair, my pillow.

What I thought only to be a drought has turned to sandy desert; he hasn't asked to nurse in about two months, and now it's gone.

He doesn't ask for milk, though. Instead he just nestles his head deeper and deeper into my own soft skin and the whimpering fades into rhythmic breaths of peaceful sleep, his tears dry.

Eventually so do my own.

Everything dries.

And I stumble through this first desert with one less of a mother's superpowers in this evolved, this stretched skin of motherhood.