love
In the morning, he comes running to my bed: SNUGGLE with me, mama.
When I pick him up from school in the evening, he holds my hand all the way home. “I love you, mama. I’m holding your hand all the way to our house because I love you so much.”
And when I tuck him in at night, he is a baby bird, I am the mama bird, and his papa is the daddy bird. I lay, nose to nose with him, his feet tucked up on my thighs, his arms wrapped tight around his beloved Zebra Zoo Zoo. I put my arm around him and he smiles. “You’re putting your wing over me, mama bird.”
When I pack his lunch box, I sometimes cut his sandwich into a heart shape, or cut out paper hearts from construction paper to make confetti.
love.
Tags: At play, bedtime, imagination, Love, motherhood, Mothering, ritual
4 opinions for love
Michael
Feb 8, 2007 at 5:42 am
The Lunch and the Connection
I remember my oldest daughter not wanting to eat her lunch when she was about Nico’s age, so I took a round piece of colby cheese and decorated it into a “face” with olive eyes, cottage cheese hair and the like. She was so little - but she still remembers this at twenty-five.
When she was a bit older, she would often help my wife pack my lunch (something precious to me in symbol and in act) and she would always take a little ‘munchkin’ bite out of it as a “surprise” for me and I still remember it at fifty.
I still miss those munchkin bites and I’m better for it. :) yes, it IS love.
Weary Parent: Parenting Tweens & Teens » Love is in the Air at the Carnival
Feb 8, 2007 at 7:21 am
[…] Some of the best love we will ever receive comes from our children. Inside Motherhood defines Love from her perspective - a Mom receiving love from her child. […]
Char
Feb 8, 2007 at 9:00 am
What a sweet story!! I love it when my 5 year old comes and asks for hugs - “big, squishy hugs”
Christina
Feb 10, 2007 at 3:23 pm
it’s great, isn’t it, Char? At least we’re working our butts off for a sweet reward.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: