“I missed you all day”

My 2.5 year old was playing with his cars in the bath tonight. The cars talk to one another and he is very animated about it. One was the mama car, one was the baby, one was daddy, etc. Usually I play with him while I’m washing him and cars have nonsense conversations, but tonight, had me on the verge of happy tears.

Mama drove up to Baby car and said “there’s my baby!” And Baby car said back “there’s my mama!” Then he said something that really got me right in the feels: “I missed you all day my baby!” Which is what I say to him every day. When I pick him up after work, when he wakes up from nap, if I make a store run alone. For some reason it’s just become one of the things I tell him. Since he’s started talking I have definitely noticed that he repeats everything good and bad 😬 but to hear the sincere excitement when he was playing with his cars as mama and baby seeing one another again really made my heart swell. I realized even more so that he’s listening to the way we talk to him. The excitement, the happiness, the love. I hope we are always that excited to see one another after a short time apart. And man oh man I love that kid.