What I think about when I think about love.

This morning, Eliot asked, "Can I be Robin today?" He was asking if he could wear his Halloween costume to school for the Valentine's Day party. Yep. That's my boy. :)

Of course I said yes, because there's no day that ISN'T a good day for a costume, as far as I'm concerned.

As I was helping him don tights and cape, I was thinking back to October, thinking about stitching up his Robin suit and then playing superheroes in the front yard with cars slowing down to watch the spectacle of us. And it occurs to me that this is what love is.

When I think about love, I think about kicking and karate chopping and zowie-ing and bam-ing around the front yard with a pair of underwear on the outside of my clothes and not really caring because all I can see is this giant smile on a little boy's face.

 When I think about love, I think about risking the dire mortification of appearing in public in a swimming suit when Eliot wants me to swim with him at the rotary pool. I think about how my self-consciousness drops away as soon as I see him splashing and laughing and paddling around.

When I think about love, I think about 2 yr old Eliot smacking his lips and saying "Ooooooh, this is delicious, Mommy!" while eating a grilled cheese sandwich that I had made him for lunch because I was incapable of actually cooking anything that qualified as real food.

When I think about love, I think about this speechless but wailing infant, finally quiet in my arms at 4:00 a.m. as we sit in the rocking chair in his bedroom. I am looking out the window at the first rays of sunlight and feeling amazed that I have survived another day here with this child.

No chocolates, no roses, no hearts.

Just this child who both depletes me and sustains me, every day.

This is what I think about when I think about love.