LOVE

As we live our lives, the way we can demonstrate love changes radically. Babies need the basics, but I feel strongly that 'the basics' include lots of adoration, both verbal and through gestures. As the children age, their needs follow suit. Love comes in many forms - most of which they are incapable of seeing as 'love'. All of those trips to sporting events, to school functions, to slumber parties...they aren't things we should ever complain about doing. It's the best way to say I love you to someone of that age. I have someone in my life right now who spells love in this way 'L-E-G-O'. It's a cryptic language, this lego, but it is something that little tiny men of this age feel is just as important as oxygen. So I don't question. During the post-Christmas clean up, I was vacuuming and heard an unusual clicking sound and realize what I'd picked up. It was the headlight (so to speak) for a star wars l-e-g-o ship. I knew he would need this and when he found it missing, would be a very, very sad little man. So I emptied the canister, very carefully, and combed through the dustbin to find it. Keep in mind that I have a dog that discharges enough hair to make another entire mammal every other day. This made the task particularly challenging. But I found it, and handed it to him. He didn't even say anything, just titled his head a little bit and blinked at me. I said it got vacuumed accidentally so I got it out for him. No further details. He came over and gave me a big smooch. Thanks mama, I love you, too, he says. Because to him, that says love. I can say it fifty times a day, but it gets absorbed into the atmosphere. Showing one simple act, no matter how yukky it might be to accomplish, that really says l-e-g-o to him. I hope that grown-ups can learn this lesson. Don't just pretend to be a nice person. Just go be one. Show people what l-e-g-o really means.