I Love Life . . . and Motherhood (in its many manifestations)

I love my book. 

 I better. 

I'm its mother.

No one, not even my sweet hubby who's been so supportive of my journey, is as deeply invested in it and my characters as I am. Friends and family try to be good sports about it. There's a lot of eye rolling, but I'm used to it. I went through that with them about Harry Potter, too.

They love me me anyway.

With this R&R, I'm on the 13th edit/rewrite. I've spent so many hours in my characters' company that I know them really well. Better than some of my dearest friends--because real people don't spill all their guts.

My life changed when I had my first child, a son. Until that moment, I'd never truly realized the depth of human love. Of a mother's love. It worried me as I prepared for the birth of my second child if the love I felt for my son would be diminished, divided, with the new addition. Or if I might not be able to love the new baby as much.

Stupid woman.

The love for my son didn't lessen with the coming of my daughter, and the love I felt for my beautiful daughter was no less than what I felt for my son. I discovered an important lesson.

Love defies mathematics.

I'd been operating on the assumption that my capacity to love was a finite thing.

Wrong!

With the addition of each child, I found that my capacity to love increased. It grew so I not only had a greater ability to love all these wonderful little people I had the privilege of mothering, but that I had more love for everyone else as well.

So how does this relate to my book? My other baby?

It means it's okay to fall in love with new projects, new characters, new worlds.

*sigh*

I love being a writer.

Have a wonderful weekend. Summer is almost here. 

 Life is good.

A to Z - Love

I'm going to talk a bit today about a mother's love. Having children changed my life in way I could never have anticipated. People can talk to an expectant mother but it's not until she bonds with her child that she really understands the depth.

Following is by Erma Bombeck--loved her humor and her heart.

Some day when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a mother, I will tell them:

I loved you enough to ask about where you were going, with whom and what time you would get home.

I loved you enough to insist that you buy a bike, that we could afford to give you, with your own money.

I loved you enough to make you return a Milky-Way—with a bite out of it—to the drug store and to confess “I stole this.”

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes.

I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, disgust and tears in my eyes.

I loved you enough to admit I was wrong and ask for your forgiveness.

I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall and hurt.

But most of all, I loved you enough to say NO when you hated me for it. That was the hardest part of all.

I found that one of the hardest things about my children growing up was when I went from being the brightest, funnest, most beautiful woman around to being the stupidest creature God put on the earth.

The pendulum has (generally) swung back the other direction, and now my children have a more balanced and practical view of me. It's just proof that you need to hang in there. The terrible twos do turn into the terrible teens--except then they can drive. But the teens years, for all their volatility, can be an amazing journey of discovery and decision.

Maybe that's why I enjoy reading YA so much.

How about you? You've got children and/or you've been a child. How powerful have you found a mother's love to be?