I’d like to share something about me that’s interesting when it comes to the topic of affection: I am not super warm and cuddly type. I am friendly and love to smile but by nature: physical touch is low on the chart.
So… affection. Nurturing and taking in and sharing affection, although each child is different, I believe it can be nurtured. My parents, by golly nurtured me in it! I do recall times where I loved it and times where I just wanted to be left alone! We can all relate, right?! It’s the classic struggle. Well! In parenting, I don’t want to leave it to personality or gender to tell me which kid deserves my love and hugs and cuddles. Starting off in pregnancy, we then to have our children named and called around twenty weeks😉 because that’s when we do the ultrasound.
We say hello and talk to the baby here and there and with each child we add, we encourage our children to do the same. They love baby before she/he comes along. If we don’t know baby or gender, we say “baby.”
Once baby is born, we cuddle people. My mindset goes to: fourth trimester, baby needs such tender love and care. No belief whatsoever in spoiling a newborn whose almost ten months have been a perfect home with the right temperature, food, drink, etc.
As the child grows, I treat feeding as a “vacation” as I was once encouraged: relaxed, feet up and no hurry. It’s helped tremendously.
My children are just about the center of my attention right after my husband.
We practice nurture, too, with our marriage: connecting daily through text and phone calls. I kiss him before he leaves for work. I greet him with a kiss when he comes home. The kids of course like a choir shout “Daddy!” when be gets home. I like to make him a big deal, because he is!
Nurture: we do the “I love you” and “I love you so much” and “you’re beautiful” and the whole encouragement buffet because it fills us up fills them up.
I think of feeding my kids from our hearts and home so they’re familiar with proper love and affection.
Well, friends. Do tell of how you give or receive affection.
Here’s to loving on our loved ones!
Abundant Mommyhood 