baby love

i think i may have written about this before...but it's because i'm pregnant again. I was holding my son last nite, he was having a very restless sleep and kept waking up. As soon as i held him he was still and nestled into me. Of course, I indulged and held him for a wee while before returning him to his cot. A mother's privilege :-)

i wondered if i would love him as much when he's a 30 year old man, or when he's my age with children of his own and a wife...well that's one view of his future...point being would i love him as much or more because i would have spent 30 years loving him and watching him grow.

Or is this it? When you son or daughter is this baby in your arms and in so much need of protection and love? And as he gets older i need to learn to step back and let him grow up and grow away from me. Is that another lesson of love? We are only stewards of those we love, we don't own them and they don't owe us anything. We had the privilege of taking care of them when they needed it the most but eventually they need to move on to their next phase in life.

I can't imagine loving a 30something man the way i love my little boy...but then it's in seeing him grow over the years and become that man which will help me love him just as much. I assume this will happen. Any parent with older children - is this true? Do you love your children just as much now as when they were little babies?

Maybe the LORD does give us that special bond with our babies and little children because they need to be loved so much. That's when they learn to love so we need to be such great examples of love for them to follow.