Theo

Birthday season continues with baby Theo turning 1 last week. We celebrated by getting him his favourite food in the whole world. Uh huh, cake. Most kids are fascinated by the candles and the singing and the attention, but this baby is all about the cake.

He’ll have his cake and eat it. Which is exactly what he did. And then he had another cake and ate that too.

His entire life right now can be summed up by a very discerning equation:

Cake = happiness and all the good things in the world.

This boy knows what’s what.

***

Hey baby Theo,

It’s your first birthday time capsule, how about that? You’ve been my baby for a whole year, and I couldn’t be happier to be your momma.

I know we had a bit of a rough start, you and I. The first month we spent together was straight up challenging. We struggled with the nursing, and the sleeping, and the gassiness, and the shouting. I’d wake up every morning and wish that you’d magically grow up.

Well, abracadabra, because look at you now. At this moment, I wish that you’d just stop growing for one minute and let me take in your squishy baby face.

There’s a lot to like about one-year-old you.

Like this face.

Urgh, how does anyone get to be this adorable? Is there any fairness in life? No.

Also, I like how you’re like the equivalent of a baby Chuck Norris. All testosterone and brute strength and manly grunts. The other day, I watched you playing with a wooden spatula and instead of using to pretend to cook like normal children, you were trying to yank it into two with your bare hands. It was a solid piece of wood, and you thought that you could pull it apart like cotton candy. After a few minutes of grunty pulling, you got really frustrated and started yelling, then finally sobbing into my shirt tragically, like “I’m NOT STRONG ENOUGH!!!”

I’m starting to suspect that you already have more testosterone than both your brothers combined. As though there isn’t already enough manly hormones in this house.

You’re really into birds these days. Why?? There are so many other beautiful animals in the world like fluffy bunnies and puppies and chinchillas, but the one animal you spend your day obsessing about is birds. I do not get it. They squawk a lot and poop everywhere and are generally pesky, but you get so excited every time you see a bird.

“BUH! BUH!!” you’d point and yell.

Now I understand what it means to love someone because I’m starting to get excited about birds too. We’d go on bird hunting walks to play our favourite game called See Who Can Point At More Birds. I’m progressing from “eww birds, gross” to “I can tolerate being near them”. Maybe one day, I’ll even learn to like them.

Before you were born, I used to worry that you’d miss out on having an appropriate amount of attention, having to share with 3 bigger siblings. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. You’re so loved by so many people.

Especially your 3 favourite siblings. If they hear the slightest sound of distress from you, they’ll immediately stop any activity we’re doing and make me “faster go take care of baby Theo”.

I love your toothy grins, and your face-eating kisses, and your delicious munchy rolls, and your cuddly chest snuggles, and your arsenal of rude faces, and the way you climb onto my lap with your favourite book.

I love you more than you love cake and we both know that’s a lot.

The husband and I, we like to play a game called Most Likely. It’s a fun game where we’ll have discussions about which kid is most likely to be/do whatever.

Like Kirsten, most likely to be head prefect. Most likely to have kids the earliest. Most likely to have a large collection of shoes.

Truett, most likely to be a dinosaur whisperer. Or a scientist. Most likely to do great in sports. And walk into a wheelbarrow. Not at the same time, obviously.

Finn, most likely to be a male model, zoolander style. Probably most likely to be a performer.

With Theo, the game has been tricky because the options are so hard to narrow down. But I’ve finally got a good one. Theo, most likely to be a beefcake. Also most likely to win a shouting contest.

I suppose it’s a good thing, that he loves food as much as he does. It’s such a delight feeding this little baby shark, he eats everything and with so much enthusiasm like he’s enjoying every bite.

Baby Theo has 2 modes when it comes to food. And not just cake either. This behaviour has extended to food of all varieties.

NO WAY. WHAT IS THIS DELICIOUS MORSEL OF GOODNESS?!!

Then Sir Shoutalot here gets all shouty and grunty like WHY IS THERE NO MORE FOOD IN MY MOUTH THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!

I’ve never seen anyone so emo about food, it’s so adorable. Every meal is an intense experience of joy and shoutiness.

And then sometimes, there’s this face. I love this face. I could eat this face all day.

Seriously, is this beefcake material or what? This baby is most likely to have muscles as big as my head.

Chubbycakes here has been doing a lot of growing lately so it’s time for an update.

Oh, guess what his all time favourite food is? Cake. He discovered cake like a month ago when Kirsten offered him a tiny bite and his eyes immediately lit up like “WHAT IS THIS PARTY IN MY MOUTH?? GIVE ME MORE!!!” Pandora’s box of cake has now been opened and he loses it a little whenever he is in the presence of cake. Any kind of cake within his field of vision must be making its way swiftly into his mouth or else this happens.

Ok, I’ll confess to sometimes making the cake detour into my mouth just to see this face because it’s funny and I’m a terrible parent and this face of full on rage is like 27 kinds of adorable.

While we’re talking about faces, these are some of his current choice ones.

Please, more cake?

What do you mean no more cake?

Urgh, I can’t even look at you right now. 

Now that we’re done talking about cake, here are some other Theo related stuff.

//Watching these 2 play together is not good for my ovaries. Just last night, Theo climbed all over Finn and tried to kiss him on the nose, but he’s not very good at kissing so he just let his open mouth hover over Finn’s nose like he was going to eat it.

“Not like that, baby Theo. You must do this,” Finn said, before planting a proper, lip-smacking kiss back on his baby’s little button nose.

//In a stunning turn of events, this baby is finally sleeping through the night. I had fully given up on having him sleep more than 3 hours at a stretch and then suddenly, it was like whole bunch of birthdays and Christmases showed up all at once. I’m talking 12 hours uninterrupted every night.

It happened while we were away in Melbourne – he spent the week at my mom’s house and I think it was a combination of not having boobs plus grandma’s amazing sleep-training bootcamp. It was like coming home to a new baby.

Well, I guess uninterrupted sleep is overrated. Hahahahaha said no mom ever.

10 months is a game changer and I’ll say it now that I have a love hate relationship with 10 months.

Right off the bat, 10 months is all about toothy grins (five teeth now. FIVE!!) and cheeky faces. I like a reasonable amount of cheek just as much as the next girl but what I’d like to know is what has become of my squishy milk-drunk little lamb who would doze off contentedly in my arms?

GONE, that’s what. 10 months just wants to play all the time.

This morning’s nap time was spent doing the opposite of napping because for a full hour, this face.

This face is all play and no naps. This face knows that it’s irresistible.

As a by product, 10 months is also the decline of chubbiness. He’s no longer mainlining milk without restraint because he knows that there’s so much more to the world than boring milk. All this milk time must be put to better use! Consequently, what has become of my pudgy little panda with delicious thigh rolls?

Also GONE.

Now I’m here helplessly watching all these lovely baby fats give way to baby muscles and I’ll have you know that I cannot stand for this nonsense.

I just performed my detailed thigh munching analysis and he’s presently in the unacceptable range of moderately chubby. UNACCEPTABLE.

10 months can’t stop movin’.

Sit here quietly when there’s a whole world to explore? No, thank you. Along with the newly discovered territory comes a whole lot of bumps and bruises and he’s wearing them like a badge of honour. Boys!

But 10 months also has its perks and I’m shan’t pretend like I’m not enjoying them immensely.

Remember all those rough nights when Theo was a newborn? I do. Struggling to breastfeed, jaundice, gassiness, unexplainable fussiness, crying for hours through the night…it was like being on an awkward first date. 10 months worth of dates later and now we’re deep in the sappy head over heels, googly-eyes, lovey dovey stage.

10 months knows how to say momma.

10 months knows what he wants. Life with an infant is like playing an elaborate game of charades, except the person doing the charading is drunk and has zero motor skill function. Do you want milk? Is your diaper full? Do you want to go for a walk? Play toys? Should I hold you and boogie down to uptown funk? So hard to tell. It is so much easier to be with a guy who knows what he wants.

10 months knows how to have a good time. He flashes a goofy grin and his eyes get all twinkly and I know some mischief is about to be had. You know what they say about boys who know how to show you a good time – definite keepers.

On second thoughts, 10 months is a bit of a heart stealer.

Baby Theo is learning to talk and it is straight up adorable. I’m talking full on heart eyes emoji situation here. I like all the big kid wisecracks I’m getting from the other 3 (even FInn!!) but incoherent semi-drunk baby talk? And all that effort it takes to make sounds?? That’s the stuff dreams are made of.

STOP IT, OVARIES!!

So one of the benefits of spending all this time with the baby is that I get to indoctrinate him on what word to say first. Uh huh, it starts with M.

This is what I’ve been spending my time doing and I’m pleased to say that indoctrination works because if you listen carefully enough, it just about sounds like mamamamamamama. :)

Is this the saddest baby face or what? Baby Theo spent the better part of last week in the hospital being treated for pneumonia. :(

It all happened very quickly, as such things typically do. Last Monday, he was down with the usual symptoms of the flu. Seemed relatively mild at first – low grade fever, cough, drippy nose, general grumpiness. The paediatrician who checked him assured us it was minor and sent us home with some zyrtec and paracetamol. That’s when things escalated. Within 24 hours, his fever spiked to 40.6 and he started gasping for air like he couldn’t breathe so I rushed him in to KK Hospital in the middle of the night, wherein he was immediately admitted once they did an x-ray and discovered that his lungs were infected.

Poor baby was not a happy camper. He did not like having to lie down in the cold, white hospital cot. He did not like being prodded and examined by the doctors with their stethoscopes and pokey devices. He did not like the sweet nurses who did their best to make him smile. He did not like having to take his meds. He did not like the oxygen mask. And he most certainly did not like the IV line that hurt and also turned his right hand into a stump.

DID NOT LIKE, MOMMA!! Much super sad sadness.

The whole time he was in the hospital, he had on his sad baby face. In fact, his face was set in varying degrees of dolefulness, ranging from

mopey…

to mehhh…

to extremely sian…

to full on disdain…

to downright miserable.

Even when he was playing with fun toys in the ward, he was all like “I shall reluctantly partake in this activity to humour you but let the record show that I’m not having a good time.”

Sad baby even managed to look forlorn while he was sleeping.

Broke my heart to see him looking so miserable all week, like all the happiness had been sucked out of him. This was some dementor-level sadness that I could not expecto patronum! away with my happy thoughts. So I just held him and sang to him and tried to share his sadness so there was less of it to go around.

It was only when we told him he could finally go home that he managed to muster a defeated half-smile.

//He’s much better now and he just needs to be on oral antibiotics for the next couple of days. Me, I’m just glad to be done with hospital couches and 30-minute power naps taken sparingly through the night.

They say that adversity makes you stronger. I sure hope that’s true.

For the first 6-8 months of a baby’s life, they basically exist as these little blobs of blurness. I mean, zero stranger awareness kind of blur. As long as they get enough milk and sleep and cuddles, they’re happy being passed around to all manner of unknown persons.

Until one day, they’re suddenly like “Hey, wait a minute, not all of these adult people are the same. This one looks funny and that one has crazy eyes. What was I thinking allowing all these strange people to hold me? This has to end.”

Enter separation anxiety.

Also known as “THIS IS MY HUMAN AND I WILL STICK TO HER FOREVER AND EVER.”

Presently, this baby needs to be attached to at least one of my body parts all day, every day. Even when he sleeps, he needs to be touching my arm/face/side at all times, so if he wakes up in his own cot and realises that I’m not there, he acts like he’s been abandoned and about to be eaten by wolves. I tried telling him that if there were hungry wolves lurking around, he would have picked the wrong human because I’m completely useless against wolves. There isn’t much I can do except maybe delay the inevitable by offering myself up as food first. In such a scenario, one should always pick Liam Neeson as your chosen human. But does he listen? No.

Also, it’s not sufficient that I’m holding him at all times. I have to be holding him the right way, which involves having as much surface area in contact with me as possible. He’ll smoosh his chubby little arms and thighs and torso tightly against my side for maximum contact, like he’s my koala and I’m his eucalyptus tree.

And when he does finally allow me to put him down, he’s on high alert mode, eyeballing me to make sure I don’t bolt. Exactly like this.

This phase of separation anxiety has been a whole world of fun. And I don’t mean this sarcastically, like one does with invisible air quote fingers. Strangely, I’ve actually really enjoyed it, having this squishy little lamb chops attached to me all the time, excessive clinginess and all.

I suppose it’s one of the perks of having done this 4 times – knowing that this phase will end eventually and knowing how much I’m going to miss it when it’s over.

And the best part? Knowing that underneath it all, it’s just my baby saying “Of all the humans in all the world, I like you the most.”