There are moments when I am touched-out breastfeeding the 1-year-old, the 3-year-old is jutting her hand in blade formation down the front of my shirt to connect with that bygone era, and the fur bébé that I singlehandedly trained to be a snuggly love monster is at my heels.
I grew up with two sisters in a huggy nuclear family, I am a marginal PDA offender and ‘physical touch’ scored highest when I read that love languages book, but there are those moments when I viscerally feel ooooover it. I feel like the center of our mini universe but instead of feeling awesome sometimes I feel the pressure of meeting everyone’s needs at the same time. Plus all three of these little ones are so freaking cute I can hardly stand it, so I really WANT to meet their needs.
I can gain my composure by thinking about how I will never be more popular than I am right now. I don’t think that realistically my kids will ever want to hang out with me more than they do right now, and they are SO sweet about it. Emil crawls so quickly to me when I come around the corner with that knowing smile on his face and Valita says things like “Mama, you sit next to me.” while patting the chair next to her, and “Mama, let’s do this puzzle together.” This is so much better than the empty popularity I pined for when I was younger because I still will want to hang out with all of these sweet beings for the rest of my life.
My daughter puts a tiara on my head and smiles and I’m telling myself that this is way more cool than if it would have happened in high school, except much less glamorous because I’m wearing yoga pants and just found a Trader Joe’s sticker on my booty.
