Love sponge

Have a nice little x-rated inner monologue joke about that one for a minute, and once you've got it out of your system, come back to me.

Ready? K.

I've described Eliana as a cup emptier. Most children are cup emptiers. It's their job. They drink up our energy, our knowledge, our love, and use it to grow and learn. Parents should expect to give, to be drained, and to expect to need to refill their cups outside of parenthood. Yes, kids put some drops back in, but it's a rare child who refills the cup. Eliana is also a less-than-common child: she makes me feel like she has drunk from my cup, licked every last drop clean from it, and then thrown it across the room because she's upset that it's empty.

Really, she's a love sponge. She thirsts for verbal and physical affection and soaks it up. She runs dry fast and needs it poured over her to stay vital.

When I say this aloud it sounds as though I must have either coddled her or starved her of affection, but I've had 7 (oops - andahalf, can't forget that part) years of reflection on this child's personality, and I've gotta say, I did neither. My kid was born a love sponge.

It's exhausting. Yet it also challenges me in beautiful ways. She pushes me to find new ways to verbalize love, ways to make it real in a child's eyes. To give it a flavor, a smell, a color, a size, a light.

Tonight I found these words for her and I wish to hold them tight for myself to get me through the times that she throws my cup against the wall and cracks it. Moments like these are the glue that puts my cup back together so I can even begin to refill.

Me: "I love you. I love you."
Eliana: "I already heard you."
Me: "I know your ears heard me the first time, but did your heart hear me?"
Eliana: (big smile) "Yes, Mom, my heart heard you both times."
Me: "What about your nose?"
Eliana: "No, it didn't."
(lifts her face for a kiss, I kiss her nose)
Me: "But do your bones know how much I love you? And your toes?"
Eliana: "All of me understands, Mom, except my bones. You have to kiss them."
Me: "How will I kiss them through all your muscle and skin?"
Eliana: "Just do it hard right here on my arm."
(smoooch)
Eliana: "See, now my bones feel love."
Me: "And now I have to get up and you have to go to sleep."
Eliana: (fights tears)
Me: "But first I have a question... do I love you more when I'm cuddling you than when I'm asleep or doing dishes or at work?"
Eliana: "No, you love me the same, always more than is possible."
Me: (tearing up, so thankful for this amazing child) "That's the truth. Now, when you grow up you can make choices for yourself. When you grow up if you don't want to have children that's OK and if you do that's OK, too. But can I tell you that there is one reason I hope you will be a mother? And that is because I know how much you love your parents, and your brother and sister, and your grandparents,"
Eliana: "-but my grandparents most of all-"
Me: "but the only way you will ever know how much I love you is if you become a mother, because the way a mother loves her children is more than any other love there is in the world."
Eliana: (bursts into tears) "I don't know how I started crying, but I am crying such a happy cry."