As long as I'm living...

Last night I was alone, in the almost-dark, on the computer.

Everyone was sleeping, and the house was quiet, other than

the dull whoosh of a few fans around the house.

-

Out of nowhere, I heard a soft, "Ooooo" sound.

I'm thirty-four years old.  Educated.  Realistic.

But I'm also a fan of the show "Ghost Adventures,"

and my instant reaction was to jerk around and whisper,

"Holy-What-The-Crap-Was-That?!?!"

-

I looked around, listened for a sec... nothing.

But it came again, this time a little louder, a little longer.

My heart started beating.

-

The third time I heard it, I realized it was sounding

more like a crying son than a lingering spirit of the dead.

I went to the bottom of the stairs and there I could

hear it was Peli, doing some kind of whining-crying thing.

-

Now, the point of this story is that when I got to him,

he was crying- but still sleeping, you know how kids do...

So I was saying his name, and stroking his hair, trying to get

him awake enough to tell me whether something was

hurting or he was having bad dreams.

-

He opened his eyes and told me it was a dream,

and tried to go back to sleep.  But within seconds,

he was crying again.  I picked him up onto my lap and

started rocking back and forth, still stroking his hair.

-

And the ONLY thing in my brain at that moment

was this:

This is an image from the book "Love You Forever,"

one of my faves.  And this is exactly how I felt last night.

Peli felt so gigantic in my arms; I could barely keep him

on my lap.  He was curled up and trying to sleep.

-

It was definitely one of those moments.

Those surreal, "This is really being a mommy" moments.

It was awesome.

And he didn't cry the rest of the night.

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