I Love You, Mom.

Today my daughter has been saying every few hours: "I love my beautiful mommy" and then hugging me.  It's what we yearn for in this life - someone to pour our love into, and for them to find that love beautiful.   Today after some trouble settling down, I rocked her to sleep, and with her warm, sleeping body melded into mine, thinking about how those words feel when you hear them brought me to tears.  Tears representing the extreme gratitude I have for the opportunity to be raising this sweet girl.

So in honor of a day when you feel loved, peaceful and worthy - even if for you today is a day quite the opposite - let's talk about some books that can nurture those feel-good words in our children.

One of our favorite books with a great love theme is Hooray for Fish by Lucy Cousins.


I must admit, we change the end to talk about "Daddy" instead of "Mommy" because I find it harder to find pro-Dad books.  And the father of this child happens to be very worthy of adoration and praise.

I also love the Anna Walker books - there is a whole series of "I Love..." books.  I Love My Mom is a great one.  My daughter's favorite line is: "When I say, 'What shall we do?' She says: 'Let's try something new!"  She recites that quite often, and it keeps me on my toes, thinking of great new things to do.


Certainly, if you read this blog, you've already read my reviews of "Me" and "YOU." - two great books about love.

Of course there are a million books about how much we love our children, and we do.  But feeling that love reciprocated keeps us going, reinvigorates our efforts, and reminds us that the love we give is planting the seeds of a positive emotional life for these sweet babes.

And in case I don't say it enough to the woman who gave birth to ME, "I love you, my beautiful mommy."