Love hurts

E is just a love. And she lures you into thinking she’s as gentle as can be. She’ll be sitting in my lap gazing at me. She’ll reach out her soft, doughy fingers as if she wants to stroke my cheek. I’ll lean in and smile wistfully, ready to etch this wonderfully sweet moment in my brain. Only then she claws at my ear with one hand and grabs a fistful of hair with the other and she lunges at my face like she’s using her head as a weapon. Her face comes slamming into mine and she smacks my nose so hard tears spring to my eyes. And while I’m trying to unfold all her fingers to untangle my hair she moves and goes in to give you one of those precious and slobbery open-mouthed kisses that babies are famous for, except now she has 2 teeth and she tries to use whatever feature on your face she comes in contact with first as a teething toy. CHOMP! I’ll shriek and beg Hubby to come and save me from the leech and when we finally pull her away, she’s so incredibly proud of herself, she squeals and flaps her arms in excitement.

She does have these moments of tenderness though. She snuggles so well. She’ll be cradled in my arms as she sleeps and suddenly she’ll burst out into a deep, heartfelt belly laugh and wake herself up. She’ll look up at me, lift her arm and stroke my cheek as her eyelids grow heavy and she drifts off again. I’ll lean down and kiss her pouty lips and remind myself that it’s worth it. It’s worth the battle scars (aka: stretch marks) that cover my abdomen, hips and thighs. It’s worth the sleepless nights, the dealing with temper tantrums in public places, the $100+ every 4-6 weeks I pay my hairdresser to cover the gray hair they’ve caused. It’s worth the pain – physical, emotional, mental - to have these beautiful gifts that are our children. I am so grateful for my girls, so grateful that someone felt we were worthy enough to be blessed with them.



So please remind me of this post the next time I’m on my hands and knees with peanut butter trying to remove play-doh from the carpet or the next time I’m pre-treating and scrubbing a white shirt that I was wearing while feeding E and she decided to sneeze with a spoonful of sweet potatoes in her mouth.