On being a mum.

He was curled up on the sofa, tucked in under his ‘baby blanket’. His eyes were red and tired, and his lips were desperately trying to stop themselves from trembling. He looked at me, I mean right at me, and said, “Can you make it all better? Please, mummy.” It broke my heart.

The kids have both been sick all week. It started off with Alicia-Rae getting croup and it morphing into the worse cold I’ve seen her suffer through. Jaedon caught the cold, followed by her croup. But he was disadvantaged in that he was already exhausted from being woken by Alicia-Rae during the past several nights. So he has been a sad-faced, tired little boy today, full of misery. And the only thing he asked of me was, “Can you make it all better? Please, mummy.”

I wish I could – as all mothers do when they see their children suffer. And I wish that kisses and cuddles would always heal his pain, and that he didn’t have to wake up one day and realise that they don’t. And as much as mummy would give everthing she has to make it (whatever it is) better, she can’t. If only life were that simple.

So for now I cherish that beautiful, simple belief that mummy’s love is enough to fix anything and everything. I know it won’t always be that way – but he has enough time to figure that out for himself. In the meantime I have lots of kisses waiting for him, and as many cuddles as he’ll ever need. They might not always be what he needs, but they’ll always be there when he needs them.

{ Children’s Photographer Melbourne }