a baby no more

He will always be my baby.

Always, always, ALWAYS.

He was the little person who made me a mummy in the first place

so however big he gets,

however grown up he appears;

he'll never stop being my baby.

But in the not very distant future

my little baby is going to suddenly seem enormous and very grown up.

He will be starting his new role as big brother

and will dwarf his new sibling

and make them seem even more small and fragile

while simultaneously appearing bigger and cleverer himself.

It seems that he had grown up a lot lately.

He is so inquisitive and talkative,

so far from the tiny baby he once was.

He's still a dinky dot, as he always has been,

but he carries himself differently now

and seems to approach this big wide world like a big boy.

He is thoughtful and kind.

He is determined and focused.

He is, quite frankly, a genius in our eyes

who counts and recognises numbers,

who is learning colours and practising them all the time,

who learns half a dozen new words most days,

who has an incredible memory

and who cracks us up regularly.

In actual fact he's been a long way away from being a baby for a little while now,

but he is and always will be a baby in my eyes.

The baby I couldn't believe I was actually allowed to keep 

when we were sent home from hospital all that time ago.

The baby who grew in my belly

and filled my world with so much anticipation and excitement.

And then arrived

and was the baby who filled my world 

with more joy and love than I could ever have thought possible.

The baby I held in my arms,

the baby I rocked,

the baby I watched sleep,

the baby I breathed in.

He will always be that baby to me.

Only now his eyes twinkle when he sees me,

now he calls "Mummy" when he wants me,

and now he cuddles back.

. . . And just when Mummy needs it most.

Like when she's crying writing a blog post about how fast he grew up.