I love you.

Luke is calling my name from his room, 'Momma!'  I just put him down for his nap and am racing around putting laundry away and picking up the kitchen.  His 'Momma!' sounds a bit different than his usual stalling antics, so I open his door to peek in at him.  He is laying on his back, smile on his face as soon as I open the door.  He knows he has won, he dared me to open the door and I complied.  

I walk the two steps to his bed and crawl in beside him.  I snuggle my nose into his neck and I can feel his breath on my forehead and a smile on his face. We lay together for a few minutes and then, in an almost inaudible whisper he says, 'I love you.'  My mommy heart jumps and leaps and wants to laugh and cry and shout all at the same time.  This might be the most pleasant thing these ears can hear in this moment.  

I whisper back 'I love you' and I can feel his mouth and eyes smile against me. He whispers again, 'I love you' and giggles.  We repeat this simple phrase back and forth back and forth until he is giggling uncontrollably.  I can't help but giggle with him and feel such immense joy all at the same time.

This boy of mine, he loves me.  I feel like a fourteen year old school girl frantic with happiness that the crush of a lifetime smiled at her in the hallway.  I feel like a teenage boy who just successfully held his girlfriend's hand for the first time at the movies.  Although I know my Luke loves me, hearing him say it over and over again makes it feel real and tangible and genuine. 

He probably won't remember this moment when he is sixteen or twenty or thirty-three or even tomorrow, but you can believe that I will be remembering for him, telling him over and over about that moment when he made his mom's world stop, just for a few moments at nap time, and made the world a much brighter, lovelier, beautiful place because he said those unforgettable words, 'I love you.'