Milestones

That first year with the Boy we watched for milestones like two eager hawks.

Once he started walking though we stopped watching quite so vigorously.  I would usually make note of when he hit certain things (like talking or running), but nothing like that first year.

I've been thinking about other milestones lately.  Milestones not measured in any book or by any physician, they're the Mom Milestones, the ones that really matter to me...

Like the first time he said a prayer by himself.  Ok, sure, he just rattled off half the words that he had heard before, but still...it was a prayer and it was just him and it was awesome.

Or the first time he said he loved something.  Naturally, it applied to his beloved Woobie, but still, it was love and he was expressing it.

Since then he's declared his love for his Daddy and for Jesus and for Agnes, and then there's his on-going list of people who love HIM, but he had never said that he loved me.

Until today.

And I know, I actually already knew that he loved me...but it was so nice to hear the words.  He lay down in his crib for his nap and after I had tucked his woobie around him he grabbed my hand and said, "Love you, Mama."

And yes, for the record, I melted into a puddle of goo, right there in the floor.

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3 years ago, we looked at his heart on the screen of an ultrasound machine.  It was a perfect little heart and it flickered on that screen like a candle flame.  And as I walked back to work later that day, I worried over that heart.  I worried about having to hold it in my hands and protect it and nurture it.  I worried about it growing up and sending it out into a world that would, in all likelihood, break it into a million pieces--not just once, but over and over again.

And in the intervening years, I've often worried over that heart.  It feels heavy in my hands, this wonderful little burden to shelter and protect but also, more and more, to let go and explore.  And now, I think maybe I'm not the one holding his heart in my hands.

I think he's holding mine.