your twenty-second week

It took us twenty-one weeks but we found something that you weren't good at.

You couldn't (or it could be wouldn't?) drink from a bottle.
Or a beaker.
Or a cup.

We tried all sorts of drinking devices but you wouldn't have any of them.

Daddy said that this was the one negative of breastfeeding that nobody tells you about.
What do you do if your exclusively breastfed baby refuses to drink his milk
from anything other than the source?
Well the simple answer is Mummy missed out on going to see Take That at Wembley Stadium.

She should have been really gutted about it.
But Mummy had learned something about sacrifices since you came along . . .

. . . that sacrifices for her little boy didn't really feel like sacrifices at all.

You and Mummy started going to Baby Massage classes.

You absolutely loved it.

You liked looking at the other babies
all lying on the floor around you.
You liked showing off your rolling skills
as you tried to reach the other babies.
You liked it when all the mummies
sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

You liked the massaging too . . . especially your feet and toes.

But it was hard to tell whether Mummy enjoyed it more.
It was so lovely for her to spend time just indulging you.
Staring at you.
Smiling at you.
Being with you.

We finally got round to hanging up our family masterpiece from Father's Day.

It looked really cool on the wall above your big boy cot.
It felt really special to look at it each morning.
Our little family.

It was beautiful to see how small your hands were compared to ours.

And to look forward to the times,
in years to come,
when you would hold up your hands
to compare them to Mummy's hands and Daddy's hands and your own baby sized hands.
And say to us,
"I can't believe I was ever that small".