One of the first maternity tops I ever got was from a company called Two Hearts. The tag had a big heart and a little heart on it. Hardly original, but my eyes welled. My hormone-dazed heart was so excited about the little heart flutter-beating inside of me, I could hardly stand it. Pregnancy focuses so much on the physical life of a baby, the all-important medical heartbeat, that I had forgotten about the other heart growing inside of me. The pretty one, the one we can draw with a red crayon and decorate with glitter, the one we will fall in love with over and over again.
One of my first nicknames for Max was Little Heart.
Parenting in the early years of life focuses on the physical well-being of a child. Establishing a rhythm of nursing, a sleep schedule and then on to solid foods aborbs most days and many nights. Then out pop teeth and runny nose leaks. Coughs, tummy troubles and unexplained rashes make you wonder if maybe you should have your pediatrician over for dinner? After all, she’s become your closet friend.
Babies are so needy and toddlers are so wanty, it’s easy to slip into a management role. Just keeping a family functioning, healthy and relatively happy is a full time job. One that wipes you out.
But what about that little crayon heart? The one that was born the size of a sticker?
I rarely call Max Little Heart anymore. Other terms of endearment fall out of my mouth like sweet kisses as we bumble through our days, but the first nickname…what happened? Another mother I know called her daughter Peanut throughout her pregnancy and during the first year of a her life, but somehow lost that. When I asked her about when she stopped calling her daughter Peanut, she paused to think. I guess it was about the same time she started needing to be disciplined more. Our parenting shifted at that point.
Jack, my littlest one, reminded me of the crayon hearts I want to cherish daily in my sons. He is an early articulator and has been able to communicate with us since he was a year and a half. His language skills extend beyond his simple needs and wants, but also express his ideas and feelings.
When Max squabbles with Jack, he sometimes says, “Bad Jack.”
Jack bursts into tears and beseeches his brother, “No, bad Jack! No, bad Jack!”
I wish you could hear the distress in his voice. It is absolutely heart-wrenching. I have to swoop him into my arms and say, “Good Jack. Jack is a good boy,” over and over to calm him down.
His little heart has such big feelings. An insult, a harsh word, a disappointment wound him in places I cannot bandage.
All I can do is remember and remind, and remember and remind:
the littlest hearts in the littlest people need my big heart,
all of it.
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