Dreaming

About once a week, The Boy Who Doesn't Nap falls asleep in the car on the way home from preschool. Inevitably, he falls asleep when he's five minutes away from home. To wake him risks the epic whining and crying of The Unslept. Jamie carries him inside, and I take him in my arms and collapse into the couch. He sleeps like a bear, heavy and deep. I hold him in my lap while I smell his sweet, little boy smell and stroke his sweaty hair, knowing all the while that my days are numbered. Soon, he will be too heavy to hold like this and too much boy to allow my affections.  As it is, I can barely breathe with his heat and his nearly 35 pounds molded into my chest, but we dream on, and I can almost pretend that I can keep him safe like this forever.