Little Mommas -Updated with photo**

The night Steven was born the girls were brought to the hospital. Colby was a bundle of tears. She would look at our sweet baby boy and just burst into tears. She would weepingly look at me and say, "Oh, Momma, he is so perfect." Her eyes were red rimmed and her cheeks were flushed. She was so overwelmed with the instant rush of love for this baby she couldn't contain it no matter how hard she tried. Gracie has become much more comfortable with the baby over the past month. She thinks she is big enough to do for him as well as I can. (With the exception of nursing or if he starts fussing then she is ready to pass him off to the closest set of hands.) I have had to instruct her eight year old self that she is NOT to pick him up on her own. She doesn't quite get it that she could hurt him or that she could easily drop him. She never fails in passing to stop and tell him she loves him or to kiss the top of his head. Her arms are always ready to hold and cuddle him. She nuzzles him and kisses him and says,"Oh, you are just a precious little thing. Yes, you are." In her higher pitched sweet baby talking voice. His natural schedule has been to nurse inbetween the time Gracie has to get up for school and just before she has to go out to the school bus. In those few minutes before she leaves she comes to where I am with him and her arms are ready to hold him. She tells him good morning and kisses him a million plus one times because, "I can't kiss him while I am at school and I have to stock up enough to last until I come home." Watching my baby girls interact with my baby boy is enough to make a hot knot of tears lodge in my throat. I swallow and swallow and more often than not the lump doesn't go down. I walk away so they don't see me crying. The hormone level is still extremely high and the emotions rest just under the surface. But thatis not the only reason. It's just me. I cry at the drop of a hat in certain situations. I can't even begin to put into words the deep fount of love that wells up in me. I love all my children the same, yet in some ways I love them differently. I love them all feircely. Mess with my kids and you have suddenly issued yourself a death wish. That is not a threat. It is a promise. I know this passionate form of emotion is part of human nature. There is an instinctive reaction in most of us to protect our children, to even die for them. I know it is part learned behavior. We as parents are responsible for teaching our children how to be mothers and fathers to their own children but more importantly we teach them how to be mommas and daddys to their children. I watch my girls with my baby boy. I see the women they will become. I see the mothers they will become. More importantly I see the Momma's they will be. It makes my heart swell up and tears stain my cheeks. The children born to my girls will be surely blessed -as I have been. Today my baby is one month old. I have no idea where the time has gone. He is growing. And so are we. Steven, 1 month old, 7 March 2006