The Little Big Love — PixieDust and PositiveVibe

Who wouldn’t want to be loved ? Not me. I’m sure it’s not you either. Can you take a minute and think of anyone you might have come across in all these years who complained to you saying “Oh my goodness, I’m getting loved way too much and it’s suffocating !” Nahh, that doesn’t sound right, does it ?

Love goes both ways and expressing love starts early in life which I didn’t get a chance to realize when I was little. I was only used to receiving it from my lovely parents, but what went back from my end was more of respect and obedience. Growing up, never once have I heard my parents say ‘I love you’ to each other or to me. It was always there, hidden deep down and only showed up in some form of action or in a way of caring or even better via tears when words failed.

I did learn the most important thing though - loving unconditionally and I’m beyond grateful to my mom and dad for that. But for some reason I didn’t want to exactly walk in their shoes. The one tweak I did was to tell My little one, my darling girl M, how much I love her at every possible instant I got. In fact when she was born and they brought her up to lay on my chest the first thing I told her was “I love you baby girl and I always will” ✨. Of course as the cliche goes, love grows every single day and there’s obviously no way for me to define its limit and so we went with her learning milestones. We began with loving till the moon, then came moon n back, transitioning to end of the planets and we are now at the galaxy level 😄 .

M has been hearing about how much I love her every single day for as long as she can remember. And the really sweet thing is, she gives it back, of course in her own ways. Through these years I experienced what it means to be the world of this little person. As you all probably know, children go through different interesting phases growing up - phases with the constant no’s, the never-ending why’s, wanting to try-out the new learnt independence doing it all by themself ceasing which would result in huge meltdowns, and of course best of all, the non-stop tagging along (oh hey there bathroom, someday in the future I will visit you by myself, just not today 😛).

But what I fondly remember in the midst of all this is how much I meant to her at each stage. One fine day, I got curious and wanted to quantify it. She was two and half and was going through the ‘Mommy, Mommy’ phase.. so, I decided to count. The counter started with the 1st ‘mommy’ that morning when she woke up and ran until after our bedtime story in the night with her slowly drifting off to sleep, and the number was three hundred and fifty six to be precise 😮❣️. Some of these calls through the day had a reason but most others were comfort calls.. and did it all really matter ? Of course, Every Single One of them.

The best part I think about showing and sharing emotions with kids right from their young age is, you can be open with them no matter how you feel. M & I, we laugh together, goof around, play pranks, get upset with each other, hug it out, say ‘I love You’ countless number of times every day that even my mom makes fun of it 😄, share love notes and most importantly I have cried in front of her. Why is it so important ? Because, I don’t want her to think that mommy doesn’t get hurt ever and is always bouncing off the happy end of the spectrum. I want her to know when I’m upset I cry too. And when it happens, she hugs me, stays around, and makes sure I’m getting better…she is just too thoughtful in her ways.

When we brought home our 2nd little one, M would check on me multiple times, tippy toe into the room when I’m asleep and leave hand written messages for me to see when I woke up and stay by my side because she knew I needed her more than she needed me at that point (so grown-up of me right, I know !!).

Contrary to how most see Life, I believe babies choose their parents and I’m extremely Thankful M chose me to be her Mommy. She is the most thoughtful, compassionate, considerate baby girl I could have asked for. The other day when I asked her what she likes the most about me, her response was “I like How much you Love me Mommy”. I’m not sure what exactly she meant by that. All I knew was, she understands my love and I hope she carries it with her for all the time to come !