Who do you want?

This past week Barks and I have found ourselves with more of our share of rough nights.  Sickness hit our home yet again and between snotty noses, coughing, vomit AND emerging molars... Well, let's just say it has not been the happiest, easy-going house.  

It was about 4 am.  We had stripped beds of vomit, changed JJs, washed blankies, administered meds, and Barks had effectively propped, shh-ed, patted and sang our sweet girl to sleep.  We laid in an exhausted, defeated heap in our bed, separated by a wild-haired blonde snoring away, limbs outstretched.  I looked to him as he watched her peaceful self adoringly, then looked to me.  A foot reached out and met mine amidst the tangled and untucked sheets.  We smiled at one another.  

Without a word spoken I knew just was he was thinking.  Because I was thinking it too.  

"We are blessed." 

Ok, so maybe he was also thinking, "look at this crazy, messy, discussing, sleepless life we created." 

But in that moment, as in so very many more, I know there's no one else I'd rather be in the trenches of parenthood with.  It's hard work, full of selflessness and sacrifice.  Many days I find myself "missing" the very person I've been alongside for hours.  

In a world where I hear so often of failed relationships, crumbled marriages and devastated families, I hold tight to the life we have built.  I take solace in knowing that Barks was, is and forever will be "my person," my world, my best friend.  

And at the end of the day, or at 4 in the morning, there's no other foot I'd rather find reaching out to mine in a sea of less-than-perfectly laid bedding.