23.5 months: "What's tha-at?"

Hello my beautiful boy.

You are such a little boy now, it blows my mind. You are so far away from the little baby that you were just six months ago... You are almost two years old, and I fear that when you turn two, life will be utterly crazy and I will not be able to write to you. We are moving house on your birthday! Your Daddy is away for the five days leading up to it, and I am away for the four days directly after it, so... yes, wish us luck...

But I wanted to tell you about the little person that you have become, the way that I used to do your monthly updates during your first year.

Things You CAN DO NOW!
You are potty trained! Much to our absolute shock and awe. It was no drama whatsoever and accidents are now very very rare. You sometimes will even go on the big toilet if we are out in a restaurant! Amazing! You are also now sleeping in a big boy bed - though it is just your cot with the rails taken away. You love being able to climb into bed when you want to, and we love that you regulate yourself this way so well. There is also the language explosion! Counting to 'twentwy!' and constantly asking, "What's tha-at?" and doing your best to imitate our answer. It amazes me how you can then remember if after asking only once! You are a little parrot, copying everything everyone says, like, "That was a big one!" and "Don't worry, Grandpa.". You are mixing your German and your English with things such as, "Flugzeug in the sky!" and "Jump on the Bahnhof?"

Ice-cream headache!

Things You Love:
Talking. You are a chatterbox, when there are not too many people around! Singing the Crocodile song, Guten Morgen and Mister Frog. Jumping in puddles, playing fussball with Daddy, jumping on the cushions once we put them on the floor, watching Chuggington (only the one with the monkeys), going to the farm to look at the tractors (you couldn't care less about the cows...). And yoghurt and cheese. Still. You are a little obsessed with the new gelateria that just opened in the middle of the village too... but are mostly very happy getting to look through the window!

Things You Hate:
Balloons, tunnels (in the playground. On the train they are cool!), loud noises and people, crowds, unpredictability




Who You Are:

Little one, I could not be more proud to be your mama. You are a quiet boy, a very very gentle soul who can also be incredibly cheeky. You are affectionate and very cautious, making sure you have really assessed any situation or person before you put any trust in them whatsoever (like making eye contact). When we are with our friends, you are in your element, but there can't be too many people at once. I think your birthday party, when we get around to it (?!) is going to have to be a pretty small affair for you to actually have a good time! From the first month of your life, I have always written that you are a very sensitive boy and a real thinker, and that has not changed. But now you make me giggle hysterically too.

I love you, my big boy!
Love Mummy.

Beans and Lentils

Dear Beanie,

I've been waiting quite a while now to write you this letter... I have half drafted it in my head during many early morning insomniac hours, and during these past eight weeks, its content has changed a lot.

You're going to be a big brother, you see! Writing that makes my stomach flip-flop and makes me go all wibbly wobbly, because I'm pretty scared about the whole thing, to be honest. I'm scared about a lot of things, and from what I hear, my fears are pretty normal... which I suppose is some consolation! Last friday, I had the twelve week ultrasound of the little lentil here inside my belly, and when I actually saw a real baby-looking baby turning around, somersaulting and moving its little arms and legs, I really started to believe it. For the first time. Twelve weeks is a long time to not really believe that you are pregnant...

The experience this time is so different to the last, when I was pregnant with you. For starters, I have a pregnancy journal that I kept with you, and I wrote in it very often, discussing all my dreams and desires for you, my fears and expectations of motherhood, all the things that were changing around me... being pregnant was all that I could think about. I wasn't officially working though (though I was spending many hours each day writing), and I had the luxury of being able to obsess and dream about you in there. Now, with this little lentil, I am trying very hard to spend at least one minute in the morning and two minutes in the evening focusing on my belly, focusing not on you, little bean, but on this new life growing inside of me. I keep meaning to start a journal, but not believing you are pregnant kind of makes it tough! I vow to start writing to the little lentil in the next few days though.

Things will have to change, and change will have to be pretty dramatic. You are my whole world at the moment... I try to remain balanced with sport and writing and other things to keep my sense of self, but really, you are my world. That is all that I have known since you were born, and that is all that you know. I am scared of how this will change, of how having a lentil will take me away from you, will stop me from being exactly what you need, because I just won't be able to be everything you need anymore. Already, things are different. I can't pick you up (you are SO heavy!) when you really need it. I can carry you sometimes, but not often. I can't carry you up all those stairs to our apartment, plus the shopping and whatever hoo-ha I also needed to bring (nappies, food, buckets and spades, spare pants, water bottle, etc), because my shoulder, my back, my heart and my lungs just seriously can't do it right now. So that means that no matter how tired or hungry or sad and in need of me that you are, we battle battle battle every time. This makes me sad... Yes, you need to learn that I can't do everything for you, you need to learn to be independent, etc etc etc, but there is a time and a place, and I miss being able to judge when is an appropriate time to teach you this lesson, and when it is better to just take you upstairs and put you to bed.

I am scared that you will resent the little lentil because it will take me away from you. Though you are an incredibly gentle and loving boy to other babies, and you have never shown any signs of jealousy if I am holding a friend's baby, I think it is only natural that it will happen, and I don't know what I will do when it does. I just hope that I also won't feel that I have been taken away from you. I just can't fathom what it will be like to have another child in my life, how I could possibly love them like I love you, and how I could possibly feel like I am doing enough and being enough when there are two of you to spread myself amongst.

I must admit that those first newborn months scare the pants off me too. I was definitely a floundering mess with you when you were so teeny, dealing with all that stress of our failed breastfeeding journey, and I don't know what I'll do this time, how I'll face those challenges, and how I'll do it all with your bubbly little toddler face around too. I know you'll cheer me up, though, that is your number one super power!

 All of this is not exactly super positive and excitable, is it?! But I suppose my letters to you have always been very honest, and it is important to me that I express how I feel to you while I am feeling it. I know that these feelings will change as the weeks roll on and my belly gets bigger, and already I am having twinges of being less scared and more excited about the whole thing. For example, those moments when you come up to my tummy, lift my shirt and very gently rub your hands over me, repeating that there is a baby in mummy's belly... that is when I envisage a beautiful life with two beautiful children who are loving towards each other, and who just have fun together. What more could I ask for?

We are hunting for a new apartment, my love, and I feel that once we have a new place, I will be less scared and more settled, with room in my mind and my heart to get super excited about this crazy new life that will be coming very soon! I will stop thinking about the difficulties of stairs with a toddler and a newborn. I will stop thinking about how I will have to squash your desires to explore and to be an adventurer, because it isn't 'the right time' to go outside right now -- we are trying to find a place with the outside right there and ready for you, anytime you want it. We will find a community with people and children all around us, where you will make friends with neighbours and we will build a new support network. Even imagining that is exciting to me!

I don't know what will happen to this blog, how it will change, what it will morph into, with a little lentil on the scene. I won't have much time, that's for sure! But these first three months of pregnancy have been rough, to say the least, so at least that is an introduction for how crazy things might become!

I could not love you more, my little one (I admit it, there's a little tear!).

Love Mummy.