Like holding him for the first time

I love my boys and every so often, actually quite often, I can’t resist touching them in an affectionate way; ruffling their hair as I walk past them or placing a peck on their cheeks (shoulders in the case of TK and Sutchy) as we say good night or punching them on the arm if they give me cheek. They are my babies.

Clearly two of my boys feel the same way!

     My relationship with the boys is different to that with Seffy or even Ashlea and Ciehan.  It could be I can’t sever the umbilical cord with the boys or TK, Sutchy and I spent so much time together in their toddlerhoods.  Or I don’t understand boys or their actions and I am compensating with affection.  It could be because society tells us males are less emotional than females and I am ‘modelling’ good behaviour.  Then again it might just be part of a normal mother-son relationship or what defines a mother-son relationship.

     Or perhaps I feel the boys need more guidance through life.  After all girls don't fart in their friends' faces or 'moon' at inappropriate moments, they don't need to be told three times to wash up then be threatened with dire consequences and they don't need to be asked, 'So, what could you have done differently?'      
     Who knows, but all year I followed Peter Greste’s imprisonment in Egypt in December 2013 and release last week through the ABC.  From the moment he was arrested I thought of his mother and how she must have felt to have him incarcerated on the other side of the world following a flawed trial involving ludicrous charges, when all he’d done was his job.  I thought about Lois Greste and I realised I could not imagine her anguish.  Of course, my heart went out to Peter’s father and his two brothers, but I as the mother of three sons, I had more in common with her.

      How could she cope not being able to hug him or punch him good naturedly when he was cheeky?

     I was reminded of a visit, eight years ago to a friend, 42 at the time.  Her father had also dropped in. After dinner we were sitting around talking.  My friend and her father were on the couch and he'd draped his arm along the back.  For a few moments he moved his hand to stroke her hair as she talked, just as I did to one-year-old Kibby at the time.  I thought it was beautiful gesture and I was determined never to stop showing affection to my children.

     I had a near-teary moment the other day. I was reading about Peter Greste being reunited with his family at the Brisbane Airport.  His mother said of hugging him, ‘it was like holding him for the first time.’  And I knew exactly what she meant.