Night Feeding

A pretty kitty to keep me company in the predawn quiet. Charmion is a little surprised but not upset to have a friend at 3:30 AM. She sits on my folders, walks over my keyboard, and butts her head against my hand as I work. My computer hums softly, the keys a little sticky from a late night pumping session gone awry. Gross, I know. Added to my mental list of to-dos: “clean computer.”

Perched on top of the kitchen island barstool I update a patients orders to include topical gentamicin for their wound. We affectionately call it “gent” as in “ladies and gents” while on medicine. And miles away, like some kind of magic, it will be done. With that and the notes from yesterdays clinic done, I go back to bed to just lay in the darkness, because even that can be restful.

My son likes to sleep with his head perfectly fitted in the curve of my neck my jaw. When I first brought him home his weight speed evenly across my breastbone and felt no more heavy than my my own heart.

Now his length sprawls past my hips, and he stays in a constant arms race between the growing size of his head and body and his strength. Days like this are fleeting, and I close my eyes as if that will help me hang tight to this moment. Just yesterday, or so it seems I am holding my baby daughter like this, not my son.

My throat is scratchy from a lingering cold that will not quit. My eyes are bleary from picking up scraps of sleep as a dog snaps up morsels from a dinner table. Still hungry.