I Love You So...

Olivia's Christmas party will be this Friday. Each child is asked to bring in one wrapped book to exchange with another friend. When we picked our book we were in a hurray, I just skimmed the pages, and threw it into the cart. Later that night Olivia asked if I would read it to her. With the horrible things that have gone on this week with the shooting in Connecticut and in Birmingham I found the pages of this sweet children's book tugging at my heart strings.

I Love You So...

by Marianne Richmond 

"I love you."

"How Much?"

"So much."

"How much is 'so'?"

"Way, way more than you know..."

I love you as brilliant as each sparkling star, and as way out as space, I love you that far.

I love you as gigantic as a great lion's roar, and as deep as the ocean, I love you much more.

"That is a lot," you say, "but how did it start? Where did love come from to be in your heart?"

You put it there, really, when you and I met. And I knew for certain without you I'd fret.

From my head to my toes, I was feeling inside a devotion to you so deep and so wide.

And now it's enormous and wonderfully real and hard to describe how much I feel!

I love you as awesome as a thundery sky, and as soaring mountains I love you that high.

"Do you love me every day?" you ask with doubting awe, "or does love go up 'n down like a teetering see-saw?"

I love you as steady as the earth rounds the sun, though some days of life are farthest from fun.

"Like when you feel mad?" you ask with distress, "'casue I've broken the rules or made a big mess? Or, when I'm unkind, and your feelings are blue, do you love me although I do what I do?"

I love you being nice, and when you're cranky, too. I love you without liking the naughty things you do.

My 'love you' doesn't change like the temper of the days. It's a certain kind of thing in many different ways.

Hanging out with you is where I want to be...eating ice cream sundaes or watching the t.v.

Under your umbrella, behind you on a bike. By you and beside you is what I really like.

"Do you love me just as much when I'm far way from home?" Is your loving still the same in distant lands I roam?"

I love you near or far. I love you high or low. My love is there with you wherever you may go.

"Even when I'm sick...and I can't get out of bed?"

Do you love me better healthy than with fever in my head?"

I love you sick or able. You're always you to me, the one I love forevermore. Undeniably.

I can't imagine life before you came along...me there singing senseless, no meaning to my song.

Call it meant to be or simply blessed fate, you fill my heart with love...and for that I celebrate.

"I love you."

"How Much?"

"So much."

"How much is 'so'?"

"Way, way more than you know..."

So sweet and so simple. This is actually something we are struggling with when we discipline Olivia. She always ask if I still love her even though she hasn't listened etc... Fighting back tears in my eyes I hug her as tight as she will let me and I hope and pray she knows that I will love her more than she will ever know.