Words

I lost my words for the past few weeks.

I'm not really sure what happened - perhaps I was just too tired, or maybe it was all the stress I've been feeling lately. Whatever the cause, I think it's finally gone. And that makes me really, really happy.

Know what else makes me really, really happy? This guy.

Last night, after a great walk and play date with new friends and after I had finished writing the first blog post I've written in weeks, F and I curled up together with a soft blanket well past our bedtime to chat. The nights of just F and I are on hold for a while, you see, as Little is coming to stay with us once again. 

F suddenly sat up, very concerned, and asked if we had remembered to put the chocolate milk back in the fridge and I couldn't help but laugh out. It was so unusual.

F is rarely concerned about issues like whether the milk is in the fridge or the light was turned off before we walked out the door. He probably couldn't care less most of the time. So, after reassuring him that the chocolate milk was, in fact, safely stored away in the refrigerator, I snuggled him a little closer and told him I loved him.

But why, Mama?

And then it hit me: I tell him all the time how smart he is. I tell him I love him. I tell F all kinds of nice things, but I never back it up - which is pretty silly, because there are millions upon millions of reasons why I love him, why he's smart and how he's a great guy. So I started telling him.

And it turned into a little game.

"I love you because you are thoughtful and funny. I like the way you think about things and ask questions so you can learn. That's why I think you're so smart."

"Mama, I love you because you do fun things with me and take care of me. And I like that you play with me a lot and we go for walks and you buy me toys all the time!"

I got a little teary-eyed hearing F say some of the things he said, and it made me realize how grown up my little boy has become. In a lot of ways, he's much older than four - he regularly helps me get dinner ready (as in, he MAKES the salad) and we have grown up conversations more often than not. It was the perfect end to a day that had gotten off to a poor start.

And the next time he's acting his own age, throwing a toy at me or trying to pull the cat by the tail, I'll savour that moment and try to wrestle him into the pants he doesn't want to put on, just the same.

Saturdate

A few weeks ago I picked F up from preschool as always and we drove home.

It's exactly a six-minute drive from preschool/work to home. We usually listen to the same 2 songs during that drive. We were waiting to make a left-hand turn when F piped up in the backseat with a simple - yet strong - question.

How was your day, Mama?

It's a question we expect of our colleagues and spouses, friends and acquaintances but I would never expect those words to come from the mouth of my preschooler. It's so... grown up. And so, it became a thing. Every day from that day on, F would ask how my day was and I would ask him about his. During our six-minute drive, he would tell me about his favourite and least favourBite parts of the day and I would generally just tell him my day was good or bad because there's only so much you can say to a four-year-old. 

We have a lot of little things we do, like our weekly Starbucks date (every Friday), and F's bath schedule. One night a week we have pizza and one night a week we have nachos. We watch Octonauts every night before bed. I realized not so long ago that F and I spend a lot of time together without really spending anything actually together and I vowed to change that. 

Tonight, we had our weekly Saturdate - aka our "Saturday date". We do something different every Saturday, whether it's going to the park or going for a walk, grabbing "coffee" together, seeing a movie at the theatres, baking cookies, whatever. We always do something, just the two of us. Sometimes, we don't even leave the house. 

Busy with 10,000 things to do, I bunked down with my laptop to try to get ahead of my list when F came over - smiling as wide as can be - and asked what my "best part" of our date had been. It was a pretty easy answer - the best part of my date was hanging out with him, without anything else to do. But what was his? 

I got to go to McDonald's and have a nice supper, with nice chicken nuggets, and fries and yoooooooooooooogurt and there was a drink and a straw and I got to see Grampy! And then we watched a movie and remember how funny The Croods were?

He said all of this in about 11 seconds, not taking a breath from start to finish and it was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever heard.

It's easy to get completely wrapped up in work and writing and chores and trying to maintain something resembling a social life and squeeze in time for the handsome Hockey Coach, but hearing how much F enjoyed a simple, 30-minute trip to McDonald's is more than enough proof that Saturdate is the most important day of the week. 

Implied

...To the Moon & Back

My son and I regularly ask eachother "Do you love me?", and the answer is always the same.

"Yes, I do love you."

I tell him over and over that I love him, and that I always will. I tell him how special he is and how lucky I am to be his Mom. I shower him with hugs and kisses, playful tickles and the occasional scolding. My heart bursts with love and pride every time I look at him. Even now, as I type this, he has kissed both of my arms and my back through the chair. When I thanked him for the kisses, he looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes and said "Thank-you for love, Mommy".

It just doesn't get any better than that.

I have vowed to always tell F how much I love him - and I hope he will always feel secure saying "I love you, Mom". If he doesn't say it, will he still love me? Of course, but there's something dangerous about the implied love. My parents love me very much - I know this because they have shown me what unconditional love is for the last twenty-four years, but it's not something we say very often. Infact, when I think about the times my parents have looked at me and said "I love you", I really have to dig deep. It was after a blow-out fight when I was a pre-teen, at graduation, when I left for University, when I was devastated after my break-up last winter. The love has always been there - we just don't say it, and I'm as guilty as they are.

I'm sure they said it all the time when I was a little girl, and I am equally certain that I said it to them all the time as a girl. Why did we stop? Maybe it wasn't cool, or maybe I was embarassed and asked them - I'm not sure. What I do know is that I was positively shocked when I first heard J tell his mom and dad he loved them, and then he kissed them. That doesn't happen at my house - and it hurt a little bit.

It's not just "I love you's" that we skip here. It's the "I'm proud of you" or the "I think you're specials" that we've left unspoken. I can't comprehend a day where I stop telling F those things, because he will always be special and I will always be proud of him. He'll make me furious and I'm sure he'll embarass the Hell out of me more than once, but that's OK. In fact, he's already done both. I believe that's called "payback" (or so my Dad tells me).

I look foward to those big blue eyes looking at me tomorrow, next week and ten years down the road and asking "Do you love me?". We're both going to change a lot, but our answers never will.