Loving More Than One

Loving my daughter for the four years and three and a half months before my son was born was so naturally easy. I had every moment available to me to love her. Even while pregnant all my attention was tuned to her. The pregnancy took care of itself. Once baby was born, I got hit fast with the reality of new mothers to a second child: THE LOVE GETS DIVIDED UP.  Now you suddenly have a larger capacity to love more than one child at a time. But it's not easy. Your heart just doesn't divide into separate pieces, each child getting one piece. No. Your heart gets larger but you're still dealing with the same amount of time. You love more than one child but you don't get more time. Wouldn't it be nice to freeze time so that the child that has to be alone while you're giving love to the other doesn't have to feel that aloneness. I read a book about feelings to my daughter tonight, And we got to the page about loneliness, I asked her if she ever feels lonely. She said when the baby cries she feels lonely because I have to go tend to him. That's the hard part! I love every moment I spend with each of them. The time I am with one is time away I am with the other one, and vice versa. Only when my son is sleeping, that familiar ease of loving my daughter comes back.  When he is awake, I have the dual love machine on full blast.  Loving two children at once is fiercely satisfying and fully engaging. My heart is pounding with love, about to break at the seams.  Wow, it's powerful, that heart is. I can love my daughter so much and love my son so much, just like I thought I could only love my daughter. Now I am giving the tremendous love to two children., I am feeling the tremendous love towards my two children. What I felt for my daughter when she was my only child, I feel for both her and my son. Double love. Simultaneous love from one heart and one mom for two children. My heart has no limits with these two. It doubled in size and doubled in value. It's a phenomenon. How does that happen? How does that work? It was a spontaneous doubling of my heart the moment I heard my son's first cry from the womb. I hadn't even met him, yet it was instant love. How does that work? And to love my daughter and my son equally, unconditionally, and uncontrollably is the greatest pride and joy for me. As hard as it is to wrap that love around them without denying them anything or any love, it is so easy because the heart is the most capable thing we know.