Reassurance

I was lying in bed with Nate after reading him a pre-nap story and we were talking about the trip he's taking with Stewart today, up to New York for the weekend. I told him I'd miss him and be thinking about him. He mulled it over for a little while and then said to me:

"Mama, always always always I love you."

(Leah: "Always always always I love you too!")

"But sometimes I have to go someplace."

("I know.")

"But I'll come back."

He went on for a while, with various repetitions of "Always I love you" and "Always I want you." He further explained that sometimes his Mommy or Daddy says he has to go someplace, but that he'll always be back.

Not five minutes before this happened, I had to haul his limp screaming body up the stairs because he was refusing to take a nap. How can just one child be so amazingly soul-fillingly sweet half the time and so grumpy and stodgy the rest?