I watch you when you are sleeping

I love to watch The Toddler whilst he's asleep, inhaling his very essence.  I want to commit every single detail to my memory and store it in a draw in my heart.  I could stare for hours at the soft dimples of his knuckles in his pudgy little hands, dirty fingernails scruffy from a mornings play.  I wish I could count every crease, every hair, every indentation.  The rise and fall of his chest mezmorises me; a lullaby. I drink the sound of his breathing and the sighs that punctuate the beautiful silence.  I resist the urge, barely, to run my fingers through the golden tangles of his hair or to stroke his pinked cheeks.  I stare in marvel, unable to comprehend that he's part of me, this perfection, is part of me and me of him.  That I created him.  I grew him.  I nurtured him. I birthed him. This amazing being he is.  I look at him and my heart stops, I can't breath and for that moment, i don't even want to.  I'm incapable of looking at him and upholding the fact that he was once inside me, this whole complete beautiful human. One day he'll be a grown up, a man with stubble on his chin, thick hair on his legs, broad shoulders and hands that dwarf mine.  Until then......I shall watch him whilst he's sleeping and protect him from the world.

I never truly understood  love was until I had Children, I still don't understand it....it gets deeper every day though.  Impossibly so.