Thoughts on Snuggles, While Snuggling

I don’t really like it– 

I feel the window of time closing on Premium Snuggle Days.

I still snuggle my “baby” to sleep most days.

I wasn’t going to be That Mom.

I was going to be Mother Efficient.

My kids were going to go to sleep on their own, on my time, not theirs.

Except it didn’t work that way.  Not for us.

I changed my mind about snuggles. 

Snuggles are not just for feeding.

They are for security. Connection. Relationship. Happy, calming hormones- for both mother and child.

And then, OT meandered its way into our journey. 

Since Occupational Therapy days, my little kids get (mostly) unlimited snuggles. They get their arms rubbed, their legs rubbed, their feet squeezed, their hands squeezed, figure eights rubbed on their backs, and they get rubbed criss-cross side to side across midline. 

I don’t always think about what I am doing; I just do it.  I squeeze them as tight as they need, as often as they want.

  

Because all that touching and squeezing and rubbing and midline crossing aren’t just weird things that lovestruck mothers do; they are paving neural pathways in developing brains. 

I think it’s a conservative guesstimate to say that I have snuggled with a child or multiple children an average of 2 hours a day, since I became a parent.  

3,821 days x 2 hours a day = 7,642  hours of my life that I’ll never get back.

I’m so glad I invested those hours in that way.

While I expect that in the next 3,821 days, the snuggle time will fade into oblivion, I hope the connection continues to increase.  

Whatever the activity, I hope my kids always want to gather in, close to me, and Just Be Together.

Just an old church basement piano

Our church has an Upstairs Piano and a Downstairs Piano.  The Downstairs Piano perfectly fit the classic neglected church basement piano stereotype. You'd get a three for one deal-  hit one note and get three different pitches.

The paper inside the piano said it was tuned in 2001. Only God knows if it had been tuned since then, but judging from its sound, I'd guess that's correct. 

That all changed today, when Mr. Piano Tuner came and gave Downstairs Piano a new lease on life. It now sounds like a real piano, not just a twang machine. 

.........

Maybe you find yourself feeling like a classic neglected church basement piano, significantly in need of a tune up. Maybe you are the one whose accepted role is for people (especially young and untrained people) to put pressure on all your buttons, and you respond by belting out loud, repulsive sounds. 

Will you just glumly embrace that as your lot in life? Will you call for- and accept- a good tune-up, so that your life once again has the potential to produce music that will bring others joy? 

I asked Mr. Tuner if Downstairs Piano was even capable of being tuned- is it worth the effort? He said he won't know until he tries.

Neither will you.

It just might change your life.

.............

Pictured: the inside of our sanctuary,  near where Upstairs Piano resides. I love this view! (Our church moved to this historic church building in 2020.)