can't put you down

Sometimes I like to tell my son stories of how he tortured me when he was a wee little babe.

Not the stories about how he was squishing my ribs for the last month of his stay inside me and it hurt to sit and breathe and how I pushed for an hour on his birth day to get him out and how I'm pretty sure I felt every last bit of it and how then I almost bled to death when he was just minutes old. I'll save that for later so that I don't have to answer any "how do babies get out of your tummy?" questions. Because we all know that the "how do babies get out of your tummy?" questions are soon followed by the "hey, how do the babies get IN your tummy?" questions and I'm not interested in answering any of those right now.

I was holding him a few days ago (because I wanted him to get off my bed and he wasn't listening so I picked him up and removed him) and I reminded him of how I used to hold him all the time when he was a new baby.

I reminded him that I used to vacuum, wash the dishes, fold laundry and sweep the floor with only one hand because all he did when I put him down was cry.

Cry cry cry cry cry.

For 3 months I held that kid. Through all his naps. Through all my household cleaning duties. Through all the Lifetime movies and reruns of Martha. All day long. I really think he would have loved to be worn in one of those baby wrap thingamabobs but I didn't have one and honestly, I didn't even know people did that.

He smiles at me now when I tell him this stuff.

I wasn't smiling back then.

I asked him if he remembers how I held him so much.

He said no.

Then I asked him why he made me hold him so much.

You know what he said?

"Because I just loved you too much!"

Oh. Now you tell me.

Here I was all these years thinking it was because he liked to torture his poor mother.

Glad I was wrong.