Can you be mine forever?

*

I whisper into your pint-sized ear while twirling your curls. You are seated on my lap, playing. You lean back and look up at me with a mischievous grin. Our brown eyes meet and you raspberry in my face, producing a rasping sound. I raspberry back--the toddler way of saying I love you.

*

Can you be mine forever?

*

I kiss you on the small of your back. You jump up, grabbing a book and start perusing the pages. Together we are turning through the pages and writing the words of our own story—your story. Each page we are creating as we go. We are learning, experiencing and making meaning out of the mundane. We don’t know what we are doing, because no one does, but by trial and error, we are creating a one-of-a-kind masterpiece—you.

*

Can you be mine forever?

*

“Yes,” you answer in a screech, your little tongue slipping through your teeth. You are going to start preschool in the fall. I will have to let you go and experience the world without me. Your over-protective mama bear by your side no more. My heart breaks that you are growing up, needing me less. Everyone says motherhood goes by fast and it really does when you aren’t completely submerged in it. Apart of me wants to slow down time and stay, drowning in the deep-end of motherhood. A bigger part of me wants to come up for oxygen and see you evolve into the beautiful person I know you will be.

*

Can you be mine forever?

*

Overnight you grow, bags of clothes are packed up for the next baby. You go from 18M to 2T to a 3T so fast. You are turning into a little person.

You choke on water. “Sweetie, are you okay?” I ask in a panic.

“I’m okay mommy,” you say, like an adult, but you are a baby. And something about the way you say it makes me want to gobble you up. I do, as you loudly SQUEEEEAAAAAAAAAALLLL!

*

Can you be mine forever?

*

“Come here,” you demand.

“Okay,” I answer, because this may all be seasonal—this stage of you wanting me all the time. I want you always to want me. I want always to be your little playmate. I want always to be able to kiss the small of your back and you to smile back at me. I want you to always look at me with heart eyes.

*

Can you be mine forever?

*

Yes.

*

Because there is one thing that will remain the same, through 18 plus summers, through heartbreak, through your entire life: You will forever be mine---always.

This article appeared originally on the author's Facebook.