>What It’s Like to be Loved

>A few nights ago, I was turning off lights around the house when I spied my daughter’s Barbie-sized dollhouse and did a doubletake. Then I started laughing.

“Hubs,” I said. “Come look.” He came into the sunroom and looked as I pointed at the dollhouse. Then he started laughing, too.

Here’s what we saw.

Yep. It’s me! Back before Punky was born, when I was “just a woman,” as she put it.

Somehow the picture had turned up from beneath a cabinet or something. It had been floating around for a few days and Punky put it to use inside her dollhouse. That night, I took the picture out and put it on a small pile of papers in the sunroom that needed to be filed away.

Then yesterday, I was back in the sunroom and there my picture was again, right back in the same place inside the dollhouse.

This time, I left it there. Right now, my two smallest children treat me like I’m the most beautiful, important, intelligent woman in the whole entire world. I am the righter of wrongs, the healer of boo boos, the giver and receiver of hundreds and thousands of kisses and hugs. And now, I’ve even merited a prized place inside the kids’ dollhouse.

I might as well take this kind of adulation as long as I can get it, because I know from experience that it’s definitely not going to last forever.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.