"Finn, will you promise to cuddle with me forever?"
With all seriousness, he looked at me and perked up immediately and responded,
"I have to fight lions and monsters first!"
But of course! So…
I let him go.
He exploded off the couch and brandished his styrofoam sword and ran off to conquer those pesky lions and monsters.
He is an adventurer at heart.
He is feisty and sweet and shy and social and loathes loud noises. He is one hundred other, unique things; and he is an adventurer at heart.
Because of that, I know that I will spend the rest of my life letting him go.
Letting him go to preschool, and then school.
Letting him go hang out with friends, and drive, and date.
Letting him go to move out and move on and head to college and career.
And every time I let him go, a little piece of me will go with him.
There is so much inside of me that wants to cling him to me and keep him close always. I dread the days when he will leave me with an actual aching in my heart.
But the older that my boys get, and the more independence that they exert, the more I realize that when I love them the way that I need to - with kisses and cuddles and spoken words - it doesn't always resonate with them.
When I cuddle and coo, it is mostly just an expression of what I am feeling in that moment. When I say, "I love you" to my boys 639 times a day, it is because I truly feel it at those moments. Those kinds of things meet my need to express my love to them.
When I sit on the floor and play Little People? When I let Finn use his superpowers to turn me into a princess and the kitchen table becomes my castle? When I pick Jonas up from his crying in the middle of the night to comfort him when all I want to do is pull the pillow over my head and sleep?
That's love in their language.
My own mom has become an expert at this as my siblings and I have gotten older. She actively seeks out our worlds and when she spends time with us, she wants it to be doing something that makes us feel attended to. That's why she sits and watches tv shows with Missy and shows care for her animals. It's why she goes shopping and sips coffee during conversation with Kiki. It's why she engages in football games that she watches with Josh, asking questions so he can explain it to her. It's why she speaks with me about music and psychology and allows me to pick her brain about everything.
Parenthood is a continual letting go. But there is an upside of letting go, and that is when you grasp the opportunities to step inside your children's worlds and be active participants in them. I guarantee you that they will never feel more loved or invested in than when they feel that you care about the things that interest them.
It's speaking their language.
