At 3:30am today I was laying in Bubba’s cot with her. She had a particularly bad coughing episode so I was checking on her, filling up her vapouriser and changing her nappy for good measure.

Then I lay down beside her because she asked me to. She was wide awake and so was I, so maybe laying snuggled up together in her warm bed and warm, eucalyptus-smelling room would help us both get sleepy again.

As I lay with her and she {yet again} flat out refused to give me a kiss and cuddle, my response to her was that it breaks my heart.

Mumma, she asked me reacing out to touch my cheek, I not break your heart mumma? She looked so concerned and her skin was fuffowed between her eyebrows the way it does when she’s worried.

In that moment my heart was the opposite of broken. Then came the clincher, as she stroked my cheek I love you my mumma. Oh yeah, there it was, the sound of my favourite words on earth.

I reassured her that my heart wasn’t broken and just said that sometimes I get sad if I don’t have kisses and cuddles for a while, and explained it’s like when she wants to be near me or on my lap, she would be sad if I didn’t want her to. Oh, okay mumma. Then she reached out and held my hand, and within moments was asleep.

As I climbed back into my bed, these thoughts came to me. First that I really need to be super careful about what I say to her. I would hate her to worry that she’d hurt me because I said something like my heart is broken. She has empathy and is a caring, sensitive little soul and I need to nurture that.

The second that she could never do anything to break my heart. How could a child possibly break a mother’s heart. Then I thought about Cory Monteith’s mumma, and all of the other mummas whose children are fighting inner turmoil and addiction. They are mummas with broken hearts.

Instead of ever being a broken hearted mumma, I hope that no matter what it is she faces in life, my Love Bug knows that we’ll be stronger if we face it together. I thought of one of my lovely girlfriends and her beautiful daughter, the struggles they’ve been through, and the strength they have both shown. That is the kind of mumma I’m aiming to be.