Femina post

Nancy Wilson has done it again - convicted me!

As a wife and mother, I do need to remember that my emotions, reactions, and attitude certainly do have a huge ripple effect. It's easy when I just have a little baby to think it doesn't matter, but it really does effect him even now. Not to mention my husband. My words and attitude is important to him and effects how he gets through his day.

Speaking of thinking babies don't understand anything until they are about a year old (a common American or perhaps simply modernist conception) . . . one day I was tired and something made me sad. I was also feeling a lot of pregnancy symptoms and so I think half of the emotional breakdown was due to hormonal imbalance. I was holding my 8 month old son and comforting him but I started to cry. I tried to be very quiet, but he heard me sniffing and turned in my arms to get a look at my face. He stared straight into my eyes and held my gaze. I could see he was trying to understand what was happening to me. I smiled through my tears and tried to show everything was fine. He had a little smiled, but wouldn't stop looking at me and was awfully serious for as long as I was crying.

I cheered up pretty quick because I didn't want to upset him. He soon got back to playing happily. I was quite surprised that he noticed my mood change, even though I tried so hard to be subtle! :) I think it was fine for me to cry then, but it's good to remember that even now my son will be aware of all my emotions and to realize that I am not just affected by me; my whole family is affected by me.