Does God Love Me?

This little boy stole my heart the second I saw him.  He bats his baby blues, shifts his eyes, scrunches his cheeks and I just melt.  He is very polite and will say sorry with little coaxing(unlike someone else I know).  He is silly, funny and curious.  His heroes are Daddy, the little monkey and the man with the yellow hat, train conductors, and "Buzzing" Lightyear.  He loves the pool, riding his bike, and throwing things.  His imagination has really taken off.   He told me he was going to play in a soccer game one day and wear an orange shirt, and Daddy was going to take him on a helicopter next week.  He said at the soccer game, his friends Jason and Maddie were going to scream at him.  I asked scream what?  He said, they will scream, Go Christian Go.  He is tender, physically tough, and seems to be getting a little more sensitive.  Where we make Callie mad when something doesn't go her way, we seem to hurt Christian's feelings.  He is in tune with other people's feelings and wants to know if you are ok, where is so and so, and when they are coming back.  He is a home body and likes to know when we are going back there.  Even though he is the more flexible happy go lucky one in our family, he doesn't forget anything.  I don't think we give him enough credit that he is paying attention.  I did a blog on the Love Languages a long time ago.  I am pretty sure one of C's primary love language is Word's of Encouragement.  He has recently entered the "watch me mommy" stage.  He gets upset if you aren't "really" watching.  He was throwing paper airplanes the other day, and I wasn't really paying attention.  So, he came over to me, closed my computer and looked me straight in the eyes and said, Mommy...watch me, open your hands like this and clap, and do you mouth like this(he had a huge smile on his face).  I think that was he way or saying, Mommy fake it if you have too.  He just lights up when we praise him.  It is more of an effective tool for him with discipline, and really helps get him to do things he doesn't really want to do(like eat).  I am trying not to think about him standing on a bridge and all of his friends clapping for him and encouraging him to jump off the bridge, but you get the idea.  Negative punishment doesn't seem to make him mind more.  He seems to get his feelings hurt, but not change the behavior.  But, praising him or telling him that he can do something makes him beam with pride.  So, we are doing 100s of high fives around here each day.  He has also started wondering about love.  Who loves who, do you love me, who do you love more etc.  I love it when he is sleepy or sad and comes up and rubs my hair and says, Mommy...am I your favorite boy?  Ahhh...really there is nothing like it.  Then he asks if he is Daddy's favorite boy and goes down the list.  He has also started asking if we love him and who we love.  Gregg took Callie to the store the other night and didn't take him since he was really ready to go to bed, and Callie had taken a nap and wasn't as tired.  Watching your child get a shot, or get stitches, or cry it out in the crib, or drop them off at the nursery doesn't compare at all to watching them get their feelings hurt.  He was devastated that he didn't get to go.  The kids are rarely separate, but shopping with one is just so much easier.  He was really tired, so I put him to bed, read him some books, and started his prayers.  Out of no where, he looks at me and says, Mommy, does God love Me?  He is 3 and is wondering if God loves him?  I guess it starts really young, that wonder when things don't go your way, does God really love me?  Yes, little Buddy, God loves you very much and so does your Mommy.  Then he says, ok, Mommy, thank you, thank you for loving me. 

I mean, he is the sweetest little boy on the planet.