One of the things that's been amazing me about the internet lately is the amount of blogs written by mothers of young children -- and their voices, though all different, all saying almost the same things, asking the same questions, venting the same anger and fear. There is some very beautiful writing out there, about what it's like to be a mother in 2005 -- it encourages me and helps me through the days here. I sometimes feel so alone. I realize that almost everybody feels this way, it's just so reassuring to read it over and over, and to realize that the days go on and things eventually get better.

Today I came across this entry by Jaymarie ( http://pondripple.blogspot.com/ ) in Southern California:

August 09, 2005:

"mama"

"I see the back of my eyelids while I feel her rubbing my arm, fingers sliding lightly along my collarbone then back down all the way to my forearm and resting at my fingertips. What I actually want to do is sleep, I would rather feel nothing and just slip back into the excellent dream I was having that I can't remember right now, but must have been really great because why else would I want so much to return to it.

She is calling me with her little digits. Now following the tendon of my underarm then down my side along my ribs putting pressure on each individual bone, pushing gently on the dips, exploring. Is she looking at me? What is she thinking? Sleep is not going to meet me again until tonight. So, I turn my face her way and will my eyes open. It isn't as though this is the first time I have awoken this morning. I already got her juice and brought her back to bed with me, but it may have been a dream because I have only the vaguest recollection of doing that. Maybe I am dreaming right now and she is still in her own bed, and it is still the middle of the night. But that wouldn't explain the light my brain registers as shining on me this second.

My eyes don't open. I start to drift off when she whispers in my ear. I mumble, "what did you say to me?" She repeats herself and makes me laugh because her breath tickles me and her lips are actually touching me, "I am going to EAT YOU UP." The last bit she says in a good growly voice. I am laughing now because she is really tickling my ear and I must laugh, can't be avoided. So, of course she repeats herself, tickle and all, "I am going to EAT YOU UP," to make me laugh even harder.

Then she says to me in her tiniest voice, "mama - I love you," and I nearly cry, the tears start somewhere in my throat, lower even, my chest. No one could have prepared me for the way I feel right now. I am a ruin. I want only this perfect love from this beautiful child. Remind me someday that I would do anything for that moment.

I didn't do anything at all. It was given to me and I don't deserve it.

Thank you, God, for her - loving me."