This bonding and attachment stuff has been one of the craziest things I’ve experienced. I mean, four new people in our family all needing to feel that they belong here, all at once. Some days it feels like our whole family is on a giant emotional roller coaster.
Some hours, days and weeks are good, and others…not so much.
After a particularly long and difficult day recently, I was making the bedtime rounds, and boy, was I feeling glad to have made it to that point in the day!
But then I came face to face with some big brown eyes, looking at me very seriously. A little voice said: “will you call me baby?” I laughed. Of course I’d call him baby. But he had more to say: “Will you say ‘hi baby’, and ‘I love you baby’, like you do sometimes?”
Ah, yes. Like I do sometimes.
So I said “hi baby, and I love you baby, and I think I’d better tickle you, baby”.
And there was much giggling.
Later, as I left that room, it struck me that it’s a bit of a basic human condition. We’d all like to be safe and cozy, and have someone to love us and call us ‘baby’.
So, grab someone next to you and say…
“I love you, baby”.