Project 52 | LOVE

52:2

Motherhood is:

LEARNING TO LOVE.

We are all  born with an innate ability to love and and a need to be loved. As a newborn, the feeling of love starts by having simple needs being met, to feed when hungry, to change dirty diapers and to just simply be held. As babies grow there is even more love to share by playing, kissing, laughing and spending time with them. Love is simple, a subconscious act, but how do we teach it?

At the age of three, the act and ideas of love seem to be coming up quite a bit around here. When something does not go her way (ie: “No you may not have a cookie before dinner.”) Giyana very quickly throws out “You make me sad mommy, you don’t love me anymore!” There are also times when she decides to take her love away. If it’s time to turn off a movie before nap time I get “I don’t love you anymore mommy”. While I always reply with “OK well I still love you”, I do wonder where she gets these feelings and words from. I can honestly say that I have NEVER told my daughter that I don’t love her anymore no matter how frustrated she can make me. So what is “love” to her?

Now that Giyana shares the love that mommy has with younger brother Jaxson, it’s important to me that she knows that the magnitude of my love will never change. I find my self making sure to have one on one time with her daily by doing things that she loves to do together. It’s also important to me that she love her brother unconditionally. Now I know, from experience, that growing up with siblings there will always fighting, arguing and yelling, but there MUST be love. This is why from the very beginning we have instilled in Giyana to Love her brother. “Always take care of your brother and love him because he is your baby and he loves you”. To this day, with all of the loving and not loving conversations, I have never heard her say anything negative toward her baby brother.

She loves him, and it is wonderful.