Like mortar between bricks, there must be love and affirmation.
I love you.
I'm proud of you.
I'm proud of you.
These things glue the feeding and housing and education basics together into a stable structure.
Love isn't superfluous. It's not weak. It is necessary for building healthy, strong relationships.
Without love, verbalized and shown, a harsh wind shakes the bricks and what we've tried to build comes crashing down.
It means so much to me that "I love you, Momma" -- "I love you too, Nathan" is the paint on the walls of our days, and that when I tell him "You're my favorite boy in all the world," he replies, "I know." And yet he's still surprised and pleased that I can be thinking about him all the time, even when I'm doing other stuff. Moms are like that.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I drop the ball a lot, but I hope he can never doubt that he is loved unconditionally. This is an excellent analogy, that love is the mortar. Keeps the big bad wolves out, no matter how they huff and puff. Beautiful photos of your precious girls and our stunning "back yard." Love you, Wendy