Mom Fatigue

I couldn't help but think of my mom last week as I held my little Gabe through 20 bouts of throwing up. I held his head, rocked him, stroked his hair, and told him it would be OK. I thanked God for giving me a mom who used to do the same thing for me.



My dad was a photography school student at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, CA when I was a baby. He did this photo story of me with mom for one of his classes. Last week, I felt just like that.



Gabe, of course, wasn't feeling any better and fell asleep anywhere and everywhere he laid his head, which was always just a few inches from where I was.


Having an extra chromosome gives Gabe a disadvantage when it comes to illness and his little body always takes a pretty hard hit. This morning was the first one in over a week that he woke up in his usual way--cheerfully playing with his toys and jabbering his made-up stories to his stuffed animals. Today we begin adding normal foods back into his diet to make up for a weight loss of over 10% of his body mass.

I had no idea how much heart when into mothering when I was on the receiving end. Mom tried to warn me, though. One of her favorite quotes was,

"When they're little they're a handful,
When they're big they're a headful,
But they're always a heartful."