"Mommy?"
"Yes, baby?"
"Will you marry me?"
The words fell sweetly out of the mouth of my 2 year old son while I was putting make-up on in my bathroom. As I turned to look him in the eyes I noticed three small rings in his open hand, a smile crossing his face, and a pair of my white casual shoes on his feet.
No one had prepared me for this "mom of little boys" moment, and I'm pretty sure my heart skipped a beat.
I bent down to his level. "Absolutely." I replied. "Do you want to put the rings on my finger?" He nodded and I held out my hand for him. He one-at-a-time placed each of the three colored rings on my pinky finger and then proceeded to slip off the shoes. "Wear these!" he said, and before I could even put them on he reached for my face. Holding my cheeks with both hands he kissed me and held me still for more than a few seconds while giggling through his puckered lips.
"Now let's dance, mommy." I swooped him up into my arms only for him to yell at me, "down!" This little boy wanted to stand like a grown up while we danced. He asked for "wedding music," but having no idea what that meant, I just hummed while we danced.
And then it was over and he was running out of my room. I'm pretty sure he ran away to go play with his cars and trucks. And I was left feeling completely overwhelmed at the love my small 2 year old son had just shown me. How could a person so small sweep me off my feet and steal my heart so easily?
My daughter, realizing that the rings I now wore on my pinky finger were hers, suddenly remembered that she needed them so very badly right now. As she tried to take them off my finger, my husband interrupted, "leave them on your moms finger." "Why?" "Because it's special to him....and to your mom."
And in that moment, my husband, who totally understood how much that interaction had meant to me, stole my heart yet again, too.
I'm not sure I ever anticipated a moment like this. A moment where my two year would sweep me off my feet. Make my heart flutter. Make me want to cry and smile at the same time. What a sweet and vastly different experience raising a little boy compared to little girls has been.
Parenting is hard. It's frustrating. Difficult. Painful. Confusing. Exhausting.
These little moments make it all worth it.
I hope to have many more of these moments with my sweet little boy. But maybe not all at once. I'm not sure my heart could handle it.
What little moments have you had with your children that make all the craziness of raising kids worth it?
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