“I love Mama” is a powerful way for a two-year-old to express love to his mother. And to his father.

Gwen has gone back to work part-time after six years at home with our boys. Noah, age six, couldn’t be happier with the extra Daddy-time, but for Benjamin, age two, it’s an adjustment.

This past Sunday was our first full day without Gwen. Noah and I were setting up a puppet show when I realized that Benjamin was no longer in the den. Last I had seen, he was arranging his Schliech farm animals inside a fence.

I looked around the house. He wasn’t in the breezeway playing with his car ramp. He was not in Noah’s room having a peek at Noah’s toys.

I found him sitting on his bed, blankie tucked around his legs. He was trying to open a tube of Weleda skin cream that Gwen uses on his knuckles and face when he gets eczema. I sat down next to him.

“Do you want help with that?”

A very tiny, “Yes.”

I unscrewed the lid, squeezed a blop onto his knuckles, and gently massaged it in. I squeezed another blop onto my finger and massaged his chin and cheeks. Benjamin purred, bathing in the loving touch.

The sun was shining in through the window, warming us. Benjamin and I were cozy and in love, connected, staring into each others’ faces.

“I love you, Benji,” I whispered. He smiled, soaking it in, basking in it.

And then he looked me right in the eyes, beaming, his tiny face alight, as he said, “I love…Mama.”

But it’s not personal. I think right now, for Benjamin, “I love Mama” is the most powerful phrase he can utter. It’s an ode to love. A magical incantation. It’s like a Smurf saying, “Boy, that Brian Leaf, he’s so Smurfy.”

Although, really, who knows, anyway, because right after that, still gazing into my eyes, he continued, “And I like goats and some hay.”

Brian Leaf is the author of Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi, which is coming to bookstores in September.  You can follow his adventures and misadventures on Facebook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

~

Editor: Alexandra Grace