Live in it

"I love you, Josh," I say this morning and he saunters away in his tight little dinosaur pajamas and casually calls over his shoulder, "Me too."

And I wonder how long it will be until this is how it goes.

I have three boys, and I assume they won't always want to hold my hand, fight for the seat next to me on the couch, pull their chairs just a little closer to mine at the table. I wonder if I'll be searching for ways to show my love, leaving little notes in their lunches that they have to hide from their friends at the cafeteria table, sneaking a kiss on the cheek after they've fallen asleep at night.

I didn't grow up saying, "I love you" in my family. It was something we lived in, but didn't say. Unless it was in a card and we could just sign, "Love you," and escape the awkwardness of saying the words out loud. We weren't aren't big huggers either. When I'd leave my mom for a week at camp or when she'd drop me off in my dorm room, we'd have that moment when we knew we were supposed to embrace, and then we'd look at each other with mutual understanding, maybe even a shared smile, and she'd touch my back and laugh, and then we knew -- that was the closest we were going to get to a tender moment.

But I never doubted. The love wasn't said out loud, but I knew it when my sister and I wrapped our arms around my dad's neck and climbed on his back to play "buckin' bronco," when we'd turn to the oldies station on Sunday night and dance around the kitchen while enchiladas baked in the oven, when we'd gather around my grandma's table for coffee (and cinnamon rolls, saltines, salami, and tuna fish) and listen and laugh to story after story after story.

And sometimes, I think growing up living in it instead of repeating it worked just fine too.