Who loves you, baby?

Jon and I tried shushing, cuddling, feeding, whispering, and taking Dexter for a walk around our quiet, dark house between 12:30 and 3:30 am, and the poor little guy would alternately nod off and wake up in fits and starts with lots of straining and crying in between (the baby, I mean!). The transition to solid foods is stress-testing his system and sometimes he has great days and sometimes he has not-so-great-days. When exhausted hours later, he nodded off with a little whimper in his crib. I feel some relief when I finally tuck him in with his blue fuzzy blanket, pat him gently and whisper goodnight. I stretch my achy muscles and slip back into my own bed, trying to fill the warm hollows between the duvet and the mattress where I slept a few hours ago.

Before falling asleep, I remember thinking about my own mother and how she must have also comforted me in the middle of the night when I was a wee thing and I say a quiet "I'm sorry" for every time I have ever taken her for granted in my lifetime. Even though I was exhausted from trying to comfort him, I felt this surge of love for my Dex and I know in my heart that I would do anything for him -- relieve his pain and give him the best life we could give him -- something my own mother might have promised long ago while looking at her own babies.