I love you boys.

I love your bellybutton reminders that you were homegrown inside of me. That we know each other inside out. Literally.

I love what a delicious mix you both are of me and your dad. But in such different ways. There goes Pete’s lips and my blue eyes on one and my temperament and Pete’s build on the other.

Blond. Both of you. Two baby album hunts later and we realize that you got that from both of us. We’d forgotten our roots were once blond too.  I love that you teach me lessons I wasn’t aware I needed to learn. With your chubby fingers and wet kisses you shape me. You mold me into a mother. Parts of me have been pummeled and punched into unrecognizable shapes. My heart has undergone major work by these two mini surgeons who operate on me, oblivious.

And I feel the hand of the Father guiding the scalpel, cutting away the layers of myself that get in the way of himself. He wraps himself around baby hands and gently, delicately dissects who I used to be and shows me who I am meant to be.  I have far to go. I take baby steps.

I laugh a lot. About a lot of nonsense. Burps and farts take on unimaginable significance in the eyes of boys. So we roll together and wrestle on the floor and let rip our joy.

I love the myriad different dimensions of love you are teaching me. There is nothing guarded about it. Love begets love. And when you hurl yourselves, your discoveries, delights and fears into my arms I am smitten. I return that love a thousand times a thousand. I loved you first my boys. I loved you first.

I love you like a steel drum beat on a Caribbean beach. I love you light blue and deep dark night. I love you starbright and hot as the sun. I love you to the beat of the bongos. African feet stomping the rhythm of my love. Undeterred, determined and delighted.

Unexpected.

I love you.