Sweet Love

Flu season came a knocking last week and whipped me with an awful cold.  A cold, that to this day, refuses to go away.  I am a sniffling, coughing, sneezing, red nosed eyed mess.  (Who may have developed a serious addiction to Nyquil.)  Unfortunately for me, work has been a bit busy, so I couldn't afford to take a day off to wallow in my bed and sleep it off.  I did throw up the white flag though one day last week and take off a few hours early because the pounding in my head had reached epic proportions.

I went home, thanked my mom for staying at my house to keep the kiddies under control, and promptly put  myself to bed under a mountain of covers.  I dozed off quickly. At some point during my nyquil induced sleep, I felt a small hand smoothing back my hair and patting my back.  I felt this every so often, off and on, for the next few hours.  When I finally awoke, the boys greeted me with concern.  

"Did you feel us checking on you Momma?"  Brennan asked, worry evident in his big brown eyes.

"I rubbed your back!"  Aidan said as he gave me a huge hug.

"I did too!"  Griffin yelled.

"We kept checking on you to make sure you were okay."  Brennan told me.

My sweet boys.  

After hugs were given all the way around, Griffin was bursting to tell me about his day in school.  

"Today, we got to pick a present out of the treasure chest if we had been good all week long.  And I was good!  And I picked this!  For you!"  He said, smiling, as he presented me with a yellow bead bracelet.

Oh, the love.  Instead of picking a fun toy for himself to celebrate a great week at kindergarten, he thought of his mom instead.  My heart aches with his sweetness.  Just aches.

I wore it to work the next day.  Anytime I felt a pang of sadness (because my job can be a total pain in my behind) or I missed my boys (always) or I was dying under the force of my awful cold, I simply looked down at my wrist and my badge of sweet love from my five year old boy.

(Ignore how hairy and unattractive my arm/wrist looks in this picture and instead focus on the cuteness of the yellow beads.  Okay?)

This is what it is all about.  For me, this is it.