better than caffeine

it really is 3:48 and i'm printing the last of my exams i'm giving, well, today (in blue because i ran out of black and green ink) and i'll probably shut down for an hour before packing up for one last fall quarter appearance. i've been working all weekend and all night trying to get 76 hamlet perfromance evaluations done and writing three separate exams based on these performances. a good idea in theory. let's say i've learned my limits this quarter. but i'm writing this not to bemoan the all-nighter but to, in my delerium, remember why teaching and mothering go hand in hand. because when owen got up for the third time tonight around 1 am he staggered half way down the hall with his plush blue puppy and just handed it to me. "here, mom" he mumbled. "maybe you can hold sprinkles and take a bath." and then he just turned around and went back to bed. and that's why i'll make it one more week. . .

i'm wondering too if that's the tradeoff for our babies getting bigger. because then they, in these rare quiet moments, get in some abstract way that sometimes one needs a blue puppy to get through the long night. here's a picture i took this afternoon--owen just looks so incredibly "big". . .