Valentine

Ahhh, Valentine’s Day..That’s my day, right? Having a last name of “Valentine” certainly has pressures and expectations every year on Feb 14th. I always have intentions of making the “big day” the BEST of the year. Certainly a ‘Valentine’ child should bring valentine cards filled with all the bells and whistles to put in all of the little classmates elaborately decorated boxes…Um, how about 10 year old cards found in a drawer with a lame piece of candy taped to the card. Thankfully, my children know the drill year after year and are happy as can be about it. The problem is this– the day sneaks up on me and before I know it, I’m too late! (It doesn’t help that tax season is starting to heat up about then). Put it this way, your Valentine’s Day is probably a lot more spectacular than mine. The kids didn’t even have milk for their cereal. I tried to hide my “fault” by approaching my husband saying, “let’s not give anything to each other this Valentine’s.” He confessed to me later that our youngest son, Luke, had confided in him that I was feeling guilty because I didn’t get anything for him.

 A Mother’s Touch

“Oh that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse in to the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,–she would see that in all God’s world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no others hands the sacred and holy trust given to her.” -JR Miller

In our homes, mothers bring joy, freshness and love. Mothers nurture the precious budding souls in their homes. Maybe this is the reason little ones seek out mothers touch. There is a need for children to lean into mom, or sit in her lap, or have their ouchies kissed.

I read somewhere that the amount of time a child needs to be touched by mother is proportionate to how old the child is. A one year old, needs to be touched every hour. A four year old, every 4 hours and so on. I would venture to say it needs to be more than that. Touch your children constantly…even the teens. The teens may act like they don’t want it but do it anyway!

Touch stimulates brain activity. Could hugging make our kids smarter?

Studies show mother child touch in underweight babies has positive effects on the baby’s temperature and breathing.