Spending all day with him used to seem like an endless hell of exhaustion and mania, like an all-nighter with several cups of coffee day after day, but now it’s different. Now I could drink him up with a straw. I get high on just the smell of him. On the way his face lights up and he kicks his legs and arms in sheer joy when he sees my face hovering over the crib after his nap. Now I feel love for him flooding my heart in an unstoppable tsunami wave. Now I can’t get enough of him and it reminds me, curiously, of the first few weeks of being in love with someone new, when an afternoon staring into his eyes and making faces at each other, or just smelling his neck, feels like time well spent.
It didn’t happen suddenly. It took months to build to this, but I’m finally beginning to see what the fuss is all about. I finally get, I think, what it means to love your child in that way mothers always say they do – fiercely, with abandon.
- Alexis, Madrid, Spain, teacher/writer
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