How beautiful you are, Mum …” : this morning, as I hurriedly got out of the shower to launch myself into the usual rush to kindergarten, office and so on, I was blocked by the tender little voice of my son, who looked at me kidnapped and accompanied this affirmation, far from reality, with a sigh of pure love. I was so, struck for the millionth time in the heart by this little creature, thanks to which for almost four years my life has been filled with love and new meanings.
If someone had told me a few years ago that I, viscerally convinced that I would never want to have children, would have found myself writing an article on the indescribable joys of motherhood, I would not have believed it. Yet today I think ten volumes would not be enough to list the infinite ways a child has to make you feel simply … happy.
I will try to tell ten of them, leaving you the opportunity to complete the list with the thousand other ideas that will certainly come to you.
1) Its existence. If he hadn’t been born, I never would have known to what extent it was possible to love another human being. A love that spontaneously pushes you to put your child’s needs ahead of yours at any time of the day, even when you are tired; even when you have a fever at 39; even when you wake up at night, it is cold and you would like to stay holed up under the covers, and instead you get up to check that the baby has not been discovered; even when you are hungry for a wolf and before eating you spend an hour without taking it in a hurry; even when you want to do something else and instead feel this incredibly powerful force that maneuvers you and instinctively guides you to take care of him before anything else. A love that makes you feel that for him you could give your life at any time.
2)Her smile . What wouldn’t a parent do for a child’s smile? The smile of children illuminates the heart because it expresses total joy, complete happiness concentrated in an instant. Children laugh with their mouths, with their eyes, with their bellies, with their whole bodies: when they smile you can give them an ortho-overview. To make them laugh like this, very little is needed: a funny voice, something put backwards, the milk of breakfast that has just spilled on the ground … But the greatest happiness is painted on their faces when they see us go home, when we go to get them at school, and then we really run the risk of liquefying in a huge sugary puddle.
3) Look at him when he sleeps. I could spend hours watching my sleeping baby. That little face sticking out of the blankets, the little hands that hold the Rodolfo rabbit, the very slight breath and the expression of perfect serenity. Sometimes instead she falls asleep clutching my arm and holding my hand under her tummy, and I remain so, enchanted, feeling literally overflowing with love for that little thing that now wanders in the world of dreams.
4) Comfort him when he cries. When you have a child, you discover that you have unsuspected thaumaturgical powers. The most desperate tears stop taking him in his arms. Sleep, falls, bruises, bad dreams, nocturnal monsters hidden in the wardrobes, wounds, abdominal pains, quarrels with other children: all sorts of evil heals with the mere imposition of our hands, or rather simply by holding the baby close to our chest. When the blow was particularly severe, the classic magic formulas such as “Passa pass bua …”, which complete the healing ritual, are effective. As we hold him in our arms, so small and defenseless, and we hear his sobs that go out with our kisses and our caresses, a sweetness never experienced, a tenderness without escape invades us.
5) Doing things with him, all for the first time. With a son we do everything for the first time and we are really excited too, discovering that taking a bus is an adventure, shopping at the market is fun, with all that colorful fruit and vegetables to choose from, not to mention the zoo , balloons flying in the sky … because everything is completely new to his eyes. On Sunday I brought my son to the cinema for the first time and I felt happy as if I had never seen a movie in my entire life. And he hasn’t seen the snow yet …
6) Discover the world with his eyes. Children are fascinated by the minimal details of things, from the most banal to the most exceptional. Being with your child, you will rediscover the shape of domestic objects, the most incredible details of your neighborhood, which perhaps you had never really looked at, every aspect of nature, from drops of dew to puddles after the storm. Last summer my son and I waited for a week for a rose to bloom, checking the bud’s growth every day … and what a party when one morning we found the flower that shone in the sun with all its petals!
7) See it grow. A child grows before our eyes and every little conquest fills his parents with joy. Everything happens gradually, but at the same time quickly, so much so that in a moment we find him in front of him playing with his friends, making speeches when he grows up, asking questions when he grows up, wondering about life and death, yet it seems to us yesterday that she took the milk to our breasts, a soft frugoletto in our arms. Seeing him grow moves and enchants, makes us want to do more and more to make him an adult happy and confident.
8) Hear his voice. The children’s voice must have been studied to move beyond all limits. Sometimes I call my son from the office just to hear his voice and then I ask him a lot of questions, because I would never tire of listening to him. Before, it was the little words that made me melt, now it is the weird little speeches, the strange and funny stories that he invents, the stories that are lost and take other paths, always funny. Then when I am angry and I hear him say slowly: “Sorry mom …” I can’t help myself, I hug him and forgive him in an instant.
9) Pamper yourself. The morning is the time for pampering. Before, I was woken by the hated alarm clock, now it is a small and warm doll that sneaks into my bed and embraces me with tenderness and limitless love. Then she snuggles up next to me and we start chatting to warm up a little more under the covers and put off the time to get up for a few minutes. How to describe such sweetness? Sometimes during the day he comes to me, stretches his arms and says: “Mom, cuddle!” and we stay like that, embraced and happy, until it decides that it’s time to go back to playing.
10) Learn from him. If you do not have a child, you cannot assume the infinite uses that can be made of anything. Looking at each object for the first time, the child does not take it for granted and often finds ingenious solutions, always much more fun than common practice. From my son I discovered, I am so precise and methodical, that pajamas can be worn by mixing the parts, the top of one and the bottom of another, with very successful chromatic effects; that one evening we can decide to make the terrible ogre of the fairytale become good, discovering which new and unpredictable events will arise from this sudden redemption; that when you open the apples you have to wake up the seeds, because in reality they are blissfully sleeping there; that there is no limit to fantasy, just remember to use it.
Children make us happy, but above all they make us become better, more mature, more grateful people for life. Perhaps the main lesson we learn by having them next to them is that they are not ours: we have brought them into the world so that they are of the world, because life takes them by the hand and takes them with them, free to choose their own path, independent in their own decisions, capable of facing happiness and suffering with equal courage, always with an infinite desire to discover something new.
If we really teach them, as children, to feel the satisfaction of being able to do it themselves whenever possible, to desire to overcome their limits without being discouraged by the failures they will encounter by trying and trying again, convinced in the end to succeed; if we make them understand that you can fail in one thing and be successful in another, that for every problem there is always a good solution, just look for it; that, if a person does not love us, there will be many others who will make us discover the wonder of friendship and affection, then we will really have reciprocated the avalanche of love that our children pour out on us from the first cry.
