squidgy

I've been meaning and meaning to write. But the last few months have been spent moving the contents of my entire apartment into storage, looking after a small baby, looking for a tenant, getting said baby his vaccination, and preparing to move to another country with said baby.

But I stopped by because last night, lying under the covers, I began itching to write something - anything - about this time. Because you see, Baby is now 6 months old and oh, I do not want to forget this time. I want to hang on to it even as it dribbles through my grasping fingers. I now understand why people take time away from work to "be with their children". I used to think this was an excuse. Now I see that when you have a little growing human being, time is a finite and infinitely precious resource.

Baby is 6 months old now and he will never be 6 months old again. He will never again be on the cusp of sitting and crawling. One day - quite soon - he will sit up and not topple over as he does now. Soon, instead of getting on all fours and lunging inexpertly forward or motoring backwards, he will crawl towards his toys.

At 6 months,  he has plump cheeks, firm plump arms and legs and fat little dimpled hands. He is squidgy and squashy and altogether delicious. He has dimples at his elbows and skin like cream.

He is amiable and lovable and smiles readily at anyone, at everyone. When he smiles, he smiles broadly in a way that lights up the room and breaks my heart.

His favourite thing to do in the world is when you pull him to his feet and support him under his arms. Then he looks around the room with wild undisguised delight. He looks exultant, like a king surveying his kingdom. Then  he starts jumping up and down as if to say, 'oh look at this great big exciting world!'

He has turned me into a sap. I now smile at babies, children on the street. I know why strangers stopped me when I was pregnant to smile at me and congratulate me. It's because they knew this time of exhausted sweetness was coming.

A few days ago, I stopped by his cot on my way to work. He was sleeping and I stroked his hair. He opened his eyes sleepily, smiled at me and went back to sleep. It was just devastating. I wanted to put my bag down, sit beside him and not ever leave.