You were fresh out of the bathtub, running around and yelling for help finding pajamas. Together, we agreed on the pants with the bears and a Blues t-shirt.
“Buddy, Mommy needs to say something to you and it’s serious.”
You sighed. “Don’t play with the light saber in the living room, I know, I know.”
“No, Spenny. Mommy needs to say sorry. I was not very nice after Shiloh was born and that probably didn’t make you feel good. I’m sorry I was mad all the time and I was mean.”
You had no idea how the guilt was eating me up. You, my firstborn son, who I love more than I ever thought humanly possible… you dealt with me at my worst. You were stuck in the house with me while I was tired and sore and full of anxiety. Your whole world changed and your mom changed right along with it. And now that I’m finally on the other side of it and I can see the ways my postpartum roller coaster affected you… I felt horrible. I felt like I damaged our relationship beyond repair and you’d never trust me again.
I remember when you were a baby and I would stare at you and think about how overwhelmed I was by the love I felt, and I could not imagine how I could ever feel anything but love. I remember thinking about other parents being annoyed with their kids or yelling at them and not even being able to conceive feeling that way towards you. Well, a few years later, I failed.
“I’m sorry, buddy. I just needed to say that to you.”
Your response. No condemnation, no rehashing of all the ways I hurt your feelings, no awkward jokes to change the subject. Instead, you threw your arms around me and held me and hugged me tight.
“It’s ok, Mommy. I still loved you when you were mad. I will never ever stop loving you!”
I will never stop loving you either, buddy. Never, ever.
Kristen Stewart, Writer 