A letter to you at 4 months old.

I’m just watching you on the play mat right now.  You’ve just rolled over from your back to your front. It’s the second ever time you’ve done that. You’re such a strong boy. You would have probably done that more except you’re always in my arms. Where you are about to be again!

Ok just popped you down about 30 minutes later. We’ve just had your first bout of sitting on your own… you’re supporting yourself with both hands in front of you but its sitting none the less. You’re so strong! For a minute there you were holding your bottle all by yourself- You’ve dropped it now but there was a minute there! 

Just had to break away to pick you up and feed you but you’re napping now so I should have a few minutes to write this. 

I wonder how many times a day I pick you up? I like to hold you close. Partly because I think it’s good for you but mostly I hold you so much because I sort of feel empty when you’re apart from me, even now, when you’re just napping to the side of me, I miss you. I think it’s because you used to be a part of me and now you are a person all by yourself.  I imagine this might be a bit like how it would feel to have an organ or a limb removed, like I’ll forever be further away from you than I should be.

The perfect hat: cute when you're a baby
and something i can use to embarrass you as a teenager!

Even though that’s a sad part of being your Mum, it’s the other side of a happy part because it is your growing independence that feels so magical. All the time I’m noticing your world expanding. In the last 3 weeks you’ve begun to really interact with things. The first time I noticed it was while I was having lunch in Wagamama’s. You were lying in my arms and you reached up and grabbed my nose. To you that might sound like something and nothing but watching you every day, I can see its such a leap. When I first met you, you were nothing but instincts and shufflings. We thought your eyes were brown because you rarely  opened them for the first week of your life- we hardly got to see that they were deep, dark blue. Just 4 months later you can use those eyes to focus on something that interests you, calculate that it’s a distance within your grasp, use your arm to fill that distance and clasp the object of your interest. By my sheer good fortune that object of interest happens to be my nose and to me that feels about as close to a miracle as I’ve ever been involved with. Since that first nose grab each day begins with a face feeling ritual: you grab my teeth, my cheeks, my hair (A lot), you’ve even attempted to grab my eyeball but I drew the line at that.

You think you are much more independent than you are, though.  You’re trying to stand, walk, sit up by yourself. You’re always making as if to get up. When you see me walk into the room and want to be with me, you try andcome to me as if you’re just going to be able to head on over. I’m constantly having to tell you quite strictly to stop trying to be a grown up, you’re only 4 months old but that doesn’t seem to stop you!

Watching you learning is beautiful. The other day you were sitting on my lap watching intently as your Nanny spoke to you. You were leaning forward, transfixed and I’m sure you were piecing together the idea of language. You have the  making sounds part down to a fine art but now you’re beginning to realise the complexity, the intricacy. You’re taking it all in. I watch you watching the world and it makes me see the world afresh; its got some pretty cool things going on.

My mum excels at many things but
 grandmotherhood is at the top of that list.

I call you the baby that yoga built. You’re serene, you’re grounded, you’re loving. I did yoga for 6 months every day before I got pregnant and then every day until you were born and here you are, the most peaceful thing I’ve ever known. Can It be coincidence? I take you everywhere with me and you never mind. Your fascinated by people and places.

We have so many adventures together. Everything is an adventure with you. I remember taking you to Tesco for the first time and feeling excited. We love to use the baby wrap. You love to be all snuggled and I love to wear you close and show you off. We also use the buggy much more now in the heat because it’s nice and cool and we love that too. You get to see the world better from the buggy and I get to see you better. I also just love the novelty of pushing the pram. All my life whenever I’ve pushed a trolley I secretly imagined it was a pram and wondered how it would feel to push my baby around Now I know; it feels great.

You already have a lot of interests. You love light, whether its flickering through the trees or buzzing from a lightbulb. You have an egalitarian enjoyment of all colourful things. Is a toy more interesting than a woman’s skirt on the bus? Not to you- you dived right into that skirt! You can spend minutes transfixed by a shadow or by your own feet. You love books but you also love the ipad. Just about the only thing you don’t love is the bath. You hate the bath.

Theo left, Me top right, Matt bottom right.

There are so many wonderful things about the last 4 months but It’s hard, baby, It’s really hard. I often feel like I have no right to find it difficult because you’re here and healthy now and all the difficulties with your heart are either behind us or a long way in the future (we hope maybe never here again) and we are so lucky that that’s the case! I have so much support all around me and more love than we know what t do with. You are as easy as a baby could ever be but being a Mummy is tougher than I ever thought possible. I think it’s because I have never had a job I wanted to succeed in as much as this. I want to be the Mummy you deserve. I want to create an amazing life for you and it isn’t always easy to know how to do that. I know that I will get some things wrong and that’s scary because I never want to let you down, or hurt you. Take today for example you have a mystery bruise on your hand. I’m freaking out- either someone has managed to hurt you in the (at most) 5 minutes I haven’t been with you or you’ve suddenly developed haemophilia. Both utterly improbable but both had me equally worried. Turns out, it’s a self inflicted love bite you’ve administered by constantly sucking your fist. Crisis averted! I wish I hadn't jumped to those scary conclusions, though.  I never wanted to be that kind of a mother and I’m fighting against it. I’m sure it is the same for many mums but after the kind of start we got off to the instinct to smother you in bubble wrap is almost overwheming (not literally, suffocation hazard, obvs.: Note to self DO NOT LEAVE BUBBLE WRAP NEAR BABY). The biggest challenge is to turn of the anxieties and be the mother I set out to be. Some days I feel great, I feel happy and confident and proud of myself but other days I feel all at sea, thrust about on tempestuous waves, out of my depth and desperate to reach the shore, which is completely out of sight. I think its getting better though. More good days than bad now. One thing I am most proud is that you don’t seem phased no matter what kind of day I am having. You are joy personified.

Thought I would end this on a little list of facts. Maybe I will update these facts as the months and years carry on.

Weight: 7.78kg

Food: 6-7 bottles of 210ml of goats milk

Medicines: not any more!

Hours sleep: somewhere between 8 and 10 hours straight a night. He sleeps through and has done since about 3 weeks old: how lucky am I? Plus lots and lots of naps.

Favourite toy: Cow face

Favourite habit: eating entire fist

Favourite food: I’m gonna go with milk!

During our stay in Barnet while we waited for his op to be moved
forward. Guess which of us hates hospital life the most!

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My favourite thing: all his little facial expressions as he sleeps- especially his indian head wobble (just looked down and you’re doing that right now)

Daddy’s favourite thing: High pitched cooing noises when you’re content.

Your Crush: Lisa

Teeth: teeny tiny little toothy buds that nobody but us can see.

Hair: gingery, lots of it and patchy, with a big tufty bit at the nape of his neck.

Clothes: Man cub t-Shirt, Blue sky, the rocket 3 pack. Anything soft and stripey. We had to see goodbye to my old favourites the scandy suit and the ducks!! It was a sad day!

Nicknames: so many its hard to count. First of all we call you Theo and Teddy or Ted interchangeably. Then theres a new name every single day. But some of the ones that have stuck are little squish (nanny), Bubs (grandpa) Babs (nanny imitating grandpa) Theo Butt (lisa and Joe) Teddily Toodles (me) Grumbles/mumbles (Daddy)

Holidays: Harrogate for my nanny’s funeral. Brighton for a get away and soon to be Driffield to see Grandma and Grandad. 

Skills: Holding nearly empty bottle all by yourself, rolling over from back to tummy. Laughing. Not all the time but sometimes you do proper throw your head back giggling often at sounds like chchchchch or me flopping my hair over you
Dummy: ABSOLUTELY. That dummy is a life saver- and it looks super cute too. Biggest advice to all Mums give them a dummy asap! Its so handy.