Spectrum of Love

This blog used to be about me being a new Mom. Remember that? Before I got all navel gazey? Those were halcyon days.

I'm still a Mom. Just not so new at it these days. Although, rest assured, motherhood finds new ways to surprise, shock and stump me on the daily.

One of the more fascinating (to me) things about motherhood is the very individual ways I can feel for my children. Of course, I knew that, as individual beings, they would inspire different things in me. But it's still so interesting to feel that as it happens.

With B, everything is fierce. I love, adore him fiercely. When I'm angry with him, when he drives me bananas, when he frustrates me down to my very soul, that's fierce. My fears regarding him are fierce. He takes a match to my world on a daily basis. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

With E, it's gentler. She inspires in me such a calmer, mellower sentiment. She softens me - my moods, my heart. And it's not that I don't have fears for her - she's a girl, they come with a whole set of fears unique to them, right? It's just that my fears for her feel different, too. She herself is a reassuring presence. Maybe it's a second born thing, maybe it's that she's the pregnancy that made it after the one who didn't...I'm not sure. But she reassures me where her brother terrifies me. It makes me grateful.

Of course, being a very dramatic 7 year old, B will occasionally drop the "You love her more!" bomb on me. And my answer to him is the same very true answer my Mom gave me when I dropped that one on her as a child, "I don't love her more. I may love her differently, because you are two different people, but it's not more or less."

Looking back, I think that message from my Mom was really important. Learning early in life that love takes many forms, and that love in all its forms is valuable, is a lesson with value beyond the nuclear family. But it's also reassuring for a child to know that different does not mean lesser, when it comes to a parent's love.