{{Because I have a date with this handsome today…my little big superhero…thought I’d put up an old post. But it never gets old being his Mama}}

It’s November 5^th and he’s still wearing his Halloween costume. One of those padded, muscly superhero get ups…America Man. That’s what he calls it. Captain America. You know the one. Not much more than a long sleeved unitard with some padding along the arms and chest. I saw one just like it at Trunk-or-Treat only it was on a full grown man with a cute little pot belly.

Evidently America Man costumes come in all sizes.

He runs to me in the mornings, usually the first of my four up to greet the day and greet his Mama. Always my high energy, free-spirited one, the fourth in a line of children that came fast and close in years. He tires me the most. And makes me melt the most too. He makes me understand why there are country songs written about being the baby of a family.

And he climbs up in my lap every morning and tells me “Good morning Mom.” And we sit like we’re doing the spider on the swings and just hug.

He needs his hair cut. I probably should give him a bath today. When was the last time he did his math work? He needs to put some clothes on. Some variation of one of those is usually the stream through my head during our morning snuggle.

Sometimes when the pressure is building all around, don’t the “shoulds” whisper so loudly you can just forget to turn them off?

Except this morning, when America Man came running it was different.

This morning, after he climbed up and settled in close, I felt his little heart beating.

Just like that, with the equivalent of a pillow on his chest, I felt the steady thump thump of his five-year-old heart, probably just the size of a small lime. Straight through all that America Man and straight through all that muscle and straight through the air between us and right onto my chest, I felt it.

The shoulds got silent and I just sat with him.

And ran my fingers through his long hair.

Breathed in his sweet and stinky little boy morning aroma.

Wondered how it is that my newborn, lastborn babe is already a math whiz kindergartner who learned that a shape with eight sides is called an octagon without Mama even teaching him.

Soaked up the peace that he’s so comfortable here he doesn’t even feel the need to put on clothes most days…or change out of his stained up superhero costume.

And that moment made me love him even more.

So we just hugged while I felt his heartbeat.

I’ve got his picture by Jeremiah 1:5 in my Bible.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you….

When we climb up into God’s lap, doesn’t he feel our heart beat straight through all our padding and all our muscles and all our America Man?

And when my costume gets dirty and dingy and stinky and frayed…

…doesn’t He still love? Love us all the more?

When we run to Him first, when we draw our strength for the day straight from the hug of our Father, doesn’t He run His fingers through our hair and sit quiet with us and listen to our heart beat straight through our superhero costume?

Before He formed us in the womb, He knew us.

My boy will probably have another woman in his life someday. Someone else listening to the thump thump of his little heartbeat.

Only then it won’t be so little.

Only then, it will be louder and stronger and truer and hopefully it will be following the beat of his Daddy’s heart who follows the beat of his Father’s heart and then…

…straight through all the padding and all the muscles and all the America Man, she’ll be able to hear it, to feel it, right up against her chest, right up against their life together.

He turns his brown, long-haired head and puts his ear up to the other side of my chest.

“Mama I hear your heart in there.”

He’s listening.

That sound right there son, that’s the sound of my love for you.

“Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the LORD has blessed.” ~Genesis 27:27