Bennett and I are sitting at the kitchen table holding hands. I glance idly at the log walls around us, the yellowing 1940s linoleum floor, the peeling wallpaper above the sink. It's the middle of the night. I haven't been up with this child, alone in a sleeping house, in a long while.

He was the baby who cried all the time; he was the one whose face contorted in pain for no reason I could recognize, or cure. He was the baby who caused me to try a wheat-free, dairy-free diet; the one who sent me searching for soy formula and homeopathic tablets, when everything else failed to bring him relief.

Finally, exhausted and out of options, I made an emergency appointment. I remember the scene: Bennett, wrapped in the baby blanket knit by his grandmother, and me waiting together in a supply closet to see our family doctor, who fit us in because (I'm convinced) of the panic he heard in my voice. "A baby shouldn't cry this much," I'd said over the phone, nearly in tears.

The hasty, supply-closet visit brought a referral to a pediatric surgeon named Dr. Anne, who diagnosed an umbilical hernia in need of immediate repair. I remember how small Bennett looked as the nurses wheeled him away from me, bare except for an impossibly tiny diaper. So much had already happened--twins, an early delivery, Avery's diagnosis. Avery's apnea/bradycardia, and now surgery for Bennett. I knew more about NICUs and PICUs and hospitals than I ever thought possible.

After Bennett's surgery, Dr. Anne came into recovery to speak with me. She had a British accent and wore a perfect string of pearls beneath her blue-green scrubs. As she explained what to expect next, Bennett's pulse-ox alarm went off.

"He's going to (BEEP) then you want to (BEEP) and the rest will be (BEEP)..."

I looked around, anxious and distracted. Where were the nurses? (BEEP). Why doesn't the doctor fix the machine? (BEEP). I looked at the alarm. It's meant to alert you whenever a baby's oxygen levels dip too low; it also goes off, I'd learned, whenever the baby wiggles and the toe clamp comes loose, which was what had happened. I asked the doctor, "Do you mind if I reset the pulse-ox?"

She nodded and laughed and said, "You know too much!"

She was right--I knew too much, more than I'd ever imagined. But I was no different than any of the other parents who were my companions in this new country: the country of canulas and g-tubes and breathing treatments, of IVs and pulse-ox machines and stainless steel cribs.

We follow our children where they lead us.

So tonight, sitting beneath the single bulb of the kitchen light, I regard Bennett. There is a spot of blood on his pajama top, and another on his leg. His fingers are smeared with red, and there are a dozen white tissues tinged crimson scattered across the table. To an outsider, it might look like a crime scene. But the truth is much less sinister--it's just a child with a bloody nose.

"And when I woke up?" Bennett says. "And there was something coming out of my nose? It was blood! It was so scary. I was very brave."

"Yes," I say. "You were very brave and you were very strong."

"I should have a jelly bean," he says. "A jelly bean for being brave."

Bennett has an insatiable sweet tooth, and though his request breaks the few meager rules I try to enforce about candy only after dinner, and about brushing your teeth before bed, and about trying to choose a strawberry or an apple or a pear instead, I nod yes.

I go to the cupboard and take down the jar filled with left-over Easter candy. I set it on the table between us and in the overhead light, the candy glows. I watch the tension and fear leave his face, replaced by excitement. "One for me," he says, "and one for you, too."

I dole out the jelly beans. This small, quiet crisis is nothing compared to the big things that could happen, that have happened. But I take my jelly bean and pop it into my mouth anyway. Because being a parent is not for the faint of heart, even on the best days. This is how we go: listening to each other, nodding our heads in recognition, holding hands through the night.