I very much believe in signs and little messages from the universe, and I’m pretty sure I got one a few nights ago, when I was still feeling tired and frustrated and generally emotional from Zoe’s sickness and subsequent sleep problems. I was flipping through a parenting magazine that had arrived that day when I landed on an article entitled “Sick Daze.” I was hooked by the first line – “Birdy is sick again” – and I happily gobbled up the author’s words about life with a sick child (and how tough it can be). But it was a paragraph towards the end that really got to me. The mom wrote:

“…The trick is not to be jaded. I try to remember how it felt when they were new and I longed to be the very muscle of their hearts so that I could be sure the blood would get pumped properly through their veins. I try to remember there are parents everywhere, wheeling and dealing with God over their children’s lives, for whom a garden-variety virus would be something like a gift. I try to remember that these snuffly little annoying children will leave us one day.”

I knew right then that someone was telling me something, and I’m pretty sure I went to sleep feeling a little less tired and frustrated. Thanks, “sign.”

-M