When I was just a little boy…

Dear Ben,

You are 5 months old. You are part of us. You have been here long enough that your sisters don’t always want to marvel over you and sometimes want to hand you back. This is amazing; I hope you will never know how amazing. This month they have forgiven the world enough not to have to treasure you as if you might leave at any moment. This month I have heard them refer to you as their brother, offhandedly, calmly, without reverence. To say ‘oh Ben……’ as you grump and grumble in tiredness, to not always want to hold you and feed you. You are one of us; you are afforded the same lack of courtesy that can befall my sibling in a large family.

This is a good thing. You may not want to let them take it too far, but it is a badge for you. You have arrived, properly, not just physically. People in your life know you, love you and trust you to stay.

This month you learned to blow raspberries and took sound copying to new heights. Ah goo has given way to a perfect sound copy of ‘hello’ -you are just missing the consonants 🙂 You play games, especially with Fran, who you will avoid the eyes of, smirking as she gets more and more outraged. You love to swing backwards and be lifted above our heads. You are a physical daredevil, I can see that already, delighting in bouncing and jiggling and upside down. You get on to your side, but haven’t rolled over except once by accident but you wiggle and squiggle and have a phenomenal swipe to get hold of things and are dexterous with your hands and playing with toys. This month you grew so much I nearly lost my mind over trying to feed you on my own and resorted to baby rice (you think it is brilliant!) and the odd bottle again (you think this is okay if daddy feeds you and pretty rubbish if I do).

It’s not about me, Ben, I know that, but I want you to know what an achievement this picture is. A photo of toes is so often a sad one in my world but these are yours – pink and alive – and that’s the blanket your daddy bought you – blue, with a miniature Freddie teddy tied to it. A year ago I would have crumbled at a photo like this, but now I can keep to myself that I drew breath hard when I unwrapped it. This is your link with your brother and your daddy then – and it’s not my place to take that from you because I can’t quite heal over my heart.

Because I’m a day late posting this, I have one star achievement to report. You sat up, all on your own, at 5 months and 1 day and sat for minutes and minutes, playing with toys. There goes my baby; now comes the next stage. If we are lucky, it might keep tiring you out this much.

Darling boy. Darling, beautiful, just one of the family, boy.