Until last summer, my 5yo was the most affectionate of my four boys. He would pepper me with kisses and make extravagant declarations. "I love you all the way up to heaven," he would say. But then one day it turned off like a faucet. Maybe one of his brothers teased him. Maybe it was some developmental thing. He decided that boys didn't do that stuff.
These days he will tell me he loves me, but sneakily. "Mom!" he will call across the room, and when I look up he will flash the "I love you" sign. He will kiss me if he is sure no one is watching. It makes me a little sad.
Sometimes it also makes me laugh. Last night we were talking about how he doesn't like to say that he loves me, how he doesn't want his brothers to know. I said, "Honey, boys always love their mothers and mothers love their boys. Even when mothers do really awful things, they love their children and their children love them. It's a law of the universe."
He said, "Oh."
He said, "Maybe Alex and Marty aren't smart enough to figure that out."
Yesterday as we were coming home I saw the first dandelions of the season. I love dandelions -- their color, their tenacity. I love it that a cheery yellow flower can sprout up from a crack in the sidewalk. I will never kill a dandelion because I think they are like little spots of sunshine. (My neighbors love me, I tell you, and my little spots of sunshine too.) Joe went out to see if his friend around the corner was home and came back a few minutes later. He hadn't found his friend, but he had found dandelions. He brought back all that he could carry and pushed them into my hands wordlessly.
Sometimes you don't need words.
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