Portrait Series: 7/52 - My animal lover

Hello bubbalicious!

Well I am super pushed for time today, seeing as we just arrived home fro Denmark last night. I could never have imagined the mound of washing that a wee boy such as yourself could create on a five day holiday!

As usual, I have so many wonderful photos of you. Reading books with your Danish-Grandmother-three-times-removed, walking along the sandy banks of the fjord, sitting on your daddy's shoulders as you stand out on the jetty, playing with the netball at my sporting tournament... but I chose this one.

A portrait of my son, once a week, every week.
My animal lover.

You are a real animal lover, it seems. I had NEVER seen you more excited than when your Danish-Auntie-and-uncle-and-cousins-three-times-removed showed you their two rabbits. Oh the giggles and the squeaks you made! And I was so proud of you. You were so so gentle with them, and seemed to understand that they are to be respected. But there was much foot stamping joy to be had!

I thought that was it. I thought you had hit your happy peak. And then there was the little puppy dog at the other family's house. Holy shamozzle I thought you would just burst open with excitement! But once again, amidst your squeals and hysterical laughing, you were so gentle.

There has been a seed planted in my brain, little one. A seed that says I should think more about this 'pet' situation. I never had a 'real' pet when I was growing up, and I think one day I would like one too. But it makes travelling difficult... and it adds another pressure to living in an apartment... sigh. We'll see. It is just a seed.

I love you ever so much.
Love Mummy.

A Button-y Tantrum

Hello Bubbaloo!

It has been many many months since you first discovered the button on my jeans. It has also been many months since you discovered light switches and our doorbell. The joy you get from buttons astounds me.

I thought it would be so cute to let you press buttons for the lift, on the bus, to open the doors on the train, etc. Turns out, you want to do it all the time. I can't emphasise that enough. ALL. THE. TIME. When we walk past a lift, you will not budge until you can press the buttons. When we are on the bus, you will have a total flip out if you don't get to push the button (even when I moved to a seat away from the button, you still managed to find one close enough to you...).

This is you, this morning. You were just squatting there in front of the lift, waiting for me to come and pick you up to push the buttons. You waited and waited and waited and I walked further and further away. Then you got up (of course at the moment that I decide to take a photo), walked in a circle, and sat down crying.

Guess what happened next?

The lift door opened and two older ladies came out, face to face with a crying toddler, alone on the bridge. They were ready to hand out Mother of the Year awards, that is for sure!

In other news, today is a big day... we are about to jump on another aeroplane! But this time it's only for a tiny amount of time, to fly up to Copenhagen so you can watch me play netball. Exciting, huh? I hope you aren't too traumatised by your flight to Australia, and I hope you don't get too frustrated at all those buttons on the plane that you are not allowed to push!

I love you,
Love Mummy.

Portrait Series: 6/52 - Your Engineering Face

Dear Beanie,

Ice cream!

It was such a tough week to choose just one portrait of you! I have a bunch of cute ones... and all of them show a particular side of you. There's the one of you at the farm, trying to push a big round stone through a gap in the wire for the goat. Stones are your favourite, and it was a real offering to give this carefully selected treasure to your new goaty friend :)

There's the one of you trying your first real ice cream! You weren't so sure at first, but with a lot (a bit too much, really!) of coercion from your Daddy and our visiting daddy, you really got into it! Not surprising, eh? Now I feel like I've opened a door to the dark side... You've been a totally healthy, all natural boy up until now...

There is the one of you playing with your Daddy's old accordion, discovering what the buttons do and how to pull it apart.

And then, on a related note, there is the one I am choosing. I love this photo of you (with me - your Daddy took this photo!) in the cog-wheel train up Mount Pilatus, playing with the window handle, learning what it does and how it works. Your 'Engineering Face', we call it. There is an intensity that washes over you when you are discovering. Your mouth opens, your eyes grow wide, and even when you are surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, nothing will turn your focus away from your "Why is it so?".  This is one of the countless things that I love about you.

A portrait of my son, once a week, every week. 

Your "Engineering Face".

As always, I'm thanking this mum for the portrait series idea.

I love you, Bubbaloo. So much.
Love,
Mummy.

Being a little brother

Dear Beanie,

Batman being so patient with your babbles
only a minute or two after he woke up. :)

For the past two and a bit weeks, you've been honorary little brother to our wonderful visitors. Little J is only five months older than you, which seemed such a big age difference back when you were 10 months old and we were in Australia. Now, you are taller than her and the gap between you two is steadily becoming less and less significant. Then there is Batman (or at least he is Batman for half of the time...), who is so incredibly sweet with you. In the mornings, he is often the first down, and you bombard him with your chitter chatter chitter chatter, and I just can't help but laughing myself silly as he looks at you, nods, and pats you gently on the head. Sometimes he'll even go in for a cuddle. Oh you kids!

I was very impressed with you yesterday, little one! We had a huge day trip up Mount Pilatus and you were a super star. You were happy all day, had a good little sleep on me during the boat trip, went exploring through tunnels and were just a brilliantly behaved, wonderful little boy.

Speaking of being so brilliantly behaved, I'm beginning to realise that many of your foibles that I often just attributed to your age and development (ie sharing or not, caring when others take your toys or not, etc) is actually not the case. You actually are simply a gentle, sensitive, loving, sociable boy. You give people things because you think it will make them happy. You let other children play with your toy if you think they want it more than you. You are thoughtful.

I wish I could explain this to you more... but it is just a feeling I have from the hundreds of little things you do throughout the day. It's the way you have reacted to having your quiet little house bombarded with two other small children and two adults that you met months ago.

I'm so proud of you, little one.

I love you,

Love Mummy.

Portrait Series: 5/52 - Ready for the rain

Well, my darling, it's almost 11pm, which is one hour earlier than your usual first wake-up call... but you DID go to bed an hour early... Having such fun visitors sure wears you out! Oh the wrath we will pay tomorrow morning... During all this middle-of-the-night molar-rearing madness, it is important for me to remember all the smiles you give me in the day and all the giggles we have together.

This week's portrait is of your first time decked out head to toe in your rain gear, with your gumboots, rain pants and jacket, ready to go out with our friends J and C for some puddle splashing goodness. Your first time!

A portrait of my son, once a week, for one year.
Ready for the rain! 

You did pretty well, my love, and it was so much fun to go out of the house without the stroller when you were so happy! I will have to do it more for such little outings, and perhaps just bring the sling to help me carry you and the shopping home.

Super fun times with our visiting buddies!

Time for bed for me. You haven't made a peep in the entire time I've written this (five minutes! Woot!) so chances are that I'll at least be able to grab half of a full sleep cycle before you once again wake up screaming as those bones plough through your jaw. My poor baby, I wish I could make it all better.

I love you!
Love, Mummy.

MY favourite thing to do!

Good evening my beautiful blonde-haired boy!

I don't know if I've told you what MY favourite thing to do is. Can you guess? My favourite way to spend a moment or two? No, it's not drinking coffee, though I can see why you might think that... It is with you (of course!) on the swings.

You are not interested in trying to go on the swings alone, you only want to go with me. Usually we begin our swing time with you sitting on my lap facing outwards and giggling giggling giggling at the world zooming by. Then, after perhaps two minutes, you become quiet. I slow down, turn you around so that your belly is against my belly and your head is against my chest, and we keep swinging. Sometimes you still have a little quiet giggle, but mostly you close your eyes and smile so contentedly, as if you would never want to be anywhere else, as if these moments are as precious to you as they are to me.

I just want to breathe in these moments, to have them become a part of me forever. This is my favourite thing.

I love you so much, little boy.
Love, Mummy.

Portrait Series 4/52 - Ready for home

Dear Beanie,

I'm writing this on the bus, with you in your pram in front of me, mesmerised by the scenery flying by. It's already seventeen minutes past the time when we always play you your five songs from Play School and then pop you in the bath with Daddy, and you are super tired. We've just had a wonderful dinner with some of our absolute best friends from Australia who have come to visit with their two littl'ns and you have been having a blast with them, despite your cold and your FOUR molars (my poor baby!).

This photo is one that I took of you as we were waiting for the bus. I like it because it is just you as you are right now. Tired, a little sick, needing distraction with your awful flashing and talking phone, and so entirely cuddlable I could just smother you up inside my arms a thousand times over.

The little boy who is visiting sometimes says to his mum, "I love you all the time" and every single time I hear it a little part of me melts.Little boy, I love you all the time. Even when you wake up every twenty minutes all night long, even when you will NOT sit in your high chair to eat dinner because walking up and down that ramp for the 152nd time is obviously much more important, even when you scream at me for not letting you chew on the toilet brush, and especially when you decide to run up and down the length of your cot again and again instead of going to sleep. I love you ALL the time!

Love, Mummy.

A portrait of my son, once a week, every week.
Ready for home.