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happy 18 months, seba

November 12, 2004

today, in the wee hours of the morning, a deep hacking cough coming from seb's room, seb's crib, seb's mouth woke me up with a start. i sat up and exited my warm flannel sheets, quilt and down comforter, my bare legs momentarily covered with goose bumps from the chilliness of our nighttime house. i walked to his room and to his crib and watched as he struggled with breathing and wakefulness. he wasn't happy about either. he tried to stifle his cough, but when he cried instead, the cough came jutting up out of his lungs. i filled up his vaporizer to start the steamy potion that was to be helping seb breathe, and he stood up in his crib, pressing his hands together, his sign language for me to sing to him. i obliged him in the dim glow of his night light. i sang one version of psalm 23 that i know well, but forgot half of the words in my grogginess. i hummed most of it instead. it was a relief to sing something besides the first verse of "jelly man kelly," the only song seb had wanted to hear for the last 48 hours. brian eventually got out of bed too, and administered some cold medicine to the sick baby. seb pressed the fingertips of both hands together asking for "more." brian gave him water saying, "no more medicine seb, one dose is all you get." seb went back into his crib easily enough with his dog-in-a-doghouse musical thing tinkling "how much is that doggy in the window," and i tip-toed back to bed.

poor seb, on this 18 month anniversary of his birthday! he is suffering it with great equinimity though, now quietly sitting in his elmo chair watching "baby neptune." some moments i wonder whether he is really sick at all. children deal with sickness much better than adults. then again, if all we had to do was play, maybe we'd be less aware of sickness too.