Wednesday, July 23, 2008

sweet baby boy


Dear little boy,

You are one year old tomorrow. It seemed momentous to me when your sister turned one, and does with you, also. I'm glad I've got you this far! I didn't have as much of a sense of you when I was carrying you as I did with your sister, other than the sense of a benign presence. And that's because you were. From the moment you were born you were my sweetie boy, my pleasant little fellow. You were like no one I had seen before, with your black hair and your little black eyes, you were my little troll doll, you still are sometimes.

Through the horrors of having to leave the house and bring you to hospital and sit there as they did all sorts of nasty things to you, you've just been a patient, friendly, accepting soul. You took to breastfeeding without a bother, unlatching yourself, and pushing yourself off if the latch was wrong, correcting yourself without a murmur. You smiled at your father at two weeks old. You have been the smiliest, darlingest, funniest boy and I love you so much. You are blue eyed with an impish grin, and the sweetest chubby cherub body. You have got old enough to let me know when you're not pleased, throwing funny little dramatic tantrums, recently you've started banging your head off things to communicate your displeasure, I'll be glad when that stops. But more significant are your hugs and kisses, your little peekaboos and jokes, your smile creeping round a door, your gurgling laugh.

Today we went to the zoo, for the first time since you were two weeks old, which didn't count. You were delighted, intensely interested and focused on all the new things. We arrived and within seconds of seeing the ducks, you said 'quack' - a second word to add to the 'yesh' you've been Sean Connery-ing about for the last day or so. You saw the monkeys, the gorillas, the seals, the penguins, the baby elephants (you waved goodbye), the lemurs, the cows and all with the most intent study.

Before bed, I feed you and you roll off my lap and flump onto the duvet, crawling up a few steps before flopping down and shooting me a huge grin. tonight you were tired after an day of driving and the zoo, but you were uncomplaining all day - you lay on the pillow and sucked your thumb. I asked you about the zoo, when I mentioned the ducks you grinned, and the splashy seals and your grin got wider. I reminded you of the elephants and you raised an arm and waved byebye again. You remembered how to say 'quack'.

One year old and all the things you've seen and learned are welling up inside you and starting to spill out.

I hope you can keep your sweetness, and humour, and continue to let all the hard things just slip on by and know I love you despite all the things I get wrong, and fail to do, and generally fuck up on.

My sweet baby boy.

7 comments:

morgor said...

heh, would "moneypenny" be too tough for a 1 year old?

Tatiana Franey said...

such a sweet post, brought tears to my eyes.
happy birthday to your baby boy

Jo said...

Thanks Selina :)

morgor, I'll get working on it.

I was up veeery late last night, finising the poor boy's teddy (it's literally half arsed because I ran out of stuffing) and the daughter woke me up early - 4 hour's sleep. So wen I read our comment, it baffled me completely for a bit. Monneypenny? Why?

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday to the little one Jo!

Unknown said...

Hi jo,
he sounds like a lovely wee lad, fair play.
I watched the Shining last night and got a strange sense of deja vu.
No i have not been on a murderous rampage but the hotel carpet is remarkably similar to your new table cloth .
possibly thats why it was a bargain !

Lottie said...

this is a really lovely post. You should print if off and have it framed for him.

Darragh said...

What Lottie said. Really lovely :)