Snuggle bug!

Some of my favorite times with my children are when they are wanting to cuddle. When Emma was little we would cuddle all the time. Some of that was because I was a single mom living in a one bedroom apartment and we shared a king sized bed. But most of the time she would want me to cuddle with her on the couch while we watched Strawberry Shortcake or Winnie the Pooh. Those moments are so precious to me! She was, is, and I hope, always will be my cuddle bug!

My cuddly moments with my son are totally different. The are just as sweet and precious but they come in a different “wrapping” so to say. I was able to breastfeed him until he was a year old; something I wasn’t able to do with my daughter Emma. Throughout his infancy these were the times where I was able to cuddle with him. Since he has begun walking I’ve been blessed with him intermittedly running to me to give me kisses. At times he will run to me and then lean against me while he is playing. It is as if he is just “making sure of me” as Pooh bear would say. I love his cuddling! He’s my snuggle bunny.

But there are other times when Bennett likes to cuddle…and it’s not solely with me. He LOVES his daddy! It is so sweet to watch him run to his daddy and reach up to him. He’s the only person that I’ve been denied for. Last night daddy and I were lying on the floor with Bennett playing. Daddy calls it Ezra Clawhammer’s hand-to-hand combat training. I just call it priceless. But as we were lying there, Bennett running in between the two of us, I was briefly struck by a sense of sadness…I wasn’t afforded that luxury with my daughter. There was never a time when it wasn’t just me, her mother, cuddling with her.

I feel very blessed now to be able to lie on the couch with my babies and cuddle with them…and their father. God has a funny way of fixing things that we so often make a mess of. Six years ago I would never have believed you if you told me that I would be happily married to an incredible man who loves my daughter as his own and who provides for us no matter how hard that can sometimes be. I would not have believed that I would be working on my master’s degree and being blessed with a house that is such a welcoming home. There are days when I wake up and worry about the things of life and I find myself weighed down by those things, sometimes even depressed. But I have to readjust, refocus on the blessings that God has poured out upon me and my family. Sometimes just the littlest things make the most profound impact on me: my engagement ring when the light catches it just the right way, the fact that we have electricity, a piece of paper hanging on our walls that proves that I am some “degree” of smart, the quack my phone makes when my husband calls, my son’s plee for “ma ma,” the endless supply of  handmade cards I get from my daughter enscribed with how much she loves me…..these are the seemingly insignificant things that make my life undeniably happy. Just like cuddling with my children!