My baby is seven months old today. We had a Plunket check this week — our Plunket lady is a perfunctory box-ticker of dire warnings and pointless, prescriptive rules (one day let’s talk about whether Plunket is actually helpful, or just adding more this-way-or-else pressure to mothers who are already under enough of it) so we generally just tick her boxes, lie when she asks about co-sleeping or solids, listen to her standard lecture about Doing Breastfeeding Right and skedaddle as fast as poss.
This time she was like “is he rolling?” and when we said yes, went to move on to her next box. Hold up, lady. This little firecracker is also sitting, crawling, creeping and cruising. He’s pulling up on everything from his cot to chair legs, and yesterday he climbed me like a ladder to get onto the couch. He’s a tiny ball of motion and chaos, and has the proportional strength of ten grown men.
He says “mum mum mum mum” all day long, just not necessarily to me. He can chase a ball and look at something for up to 45 seconds before he puts it in his mouth (on a good day). He plays games. He has opinions and mood swings and two stubby wee teeth. He laughs with his whole fat little body, his head popping up over coffee tables and sofa arms to blow smug, drooling raspberries. He is definitely the best and most wonderful baby ever to have lived, and I find myself wanting to stop people in the street and demand they look at him — look at him! — look at this delicious little human person who grew inside my body. Has there ever been anything so incredible?
To which all the other parents say, with conviction: yes. Each one, until the next one. Yes.
Yesterday he pulled over two bins, the laundry basket, the cat’s bowls (twice), a lamp and his toy basket. He occupied himself with licking chair legs all over the house, climbed into our wardrobe and pulled himself up on a heater (which thankfully wasn’t on, unlike last time he did that in the lounge and I thought he’d burned his hands and both of us cried).
I also tried out my serious angry-mum voice for the first time and he laughed at it. So that’s encouraging.
Every day he can do ten things he couldn’t do the day before. Every day he’s more independent and interactive. (And every time something about parenting him becomes easier, something else gets harder.) The growth curve is exponential. I look at photos of him seven months ago and can’t fathom how we got here in those short months, even though at times every hour of it has felt like years.
It’s incredible, and it’s also terrible: I thought I’d have longer. I can already see the baby slipping away to make room for the boy, and it’s too soon. I love that he’s bold and brave and strong and determined to do everything now, but part of me feels like he’s cheating me out of his babyhood, like we’re going straight from newborn to toddler, and I’m never going to be able to get enough of the chubby, gummy, cheeky little nugget he is right now.
Everyone was right: it goes so fast. Too fast.
And, with a roar, he’s awake. Off we go again.
