10 things

One day you’re cleaning up your kids’ rooms while they’re away at their father’s and among their piles of mess you come across a list the two of them made and.. oof.. if you don’t just ache with longing for them then.

Writing lists about one’s family members is hereditary, apparently.

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10 things we enjoy most about Cormac, aged 2 years and one quarter

See here for previous lists.

Mine.

1. The way you like to drive a toy car on my breast while you breastfeed. I am sure this one will move to my ‘least enjoyed’ list if it sticks around any longer. You take toy cars and trains to bed with you, too.
2. That you have your own music taste already – you like a big beat, you like guitars. “Not this song” you will say, in a really disgruntled voice, if the wrong one comes on in the car. You and your sister have really brought a lot more hip hop into our lives, too, because you two really dig that music. Though your absolute favourite song at the moment is ‘Jolene’ by Dolly Parton. (How do you like them apples, 16 year old Cormac, looking back through the Internet files?)
3. You have started telling us what you ‘love’ and ‘like’. You love camembert. You love dark chocolate. You love pasta. You love fish. You love Thomas the Tank Engine. You love books. You love Montessori playgroup and music class. You love singing and being sung to. You love parties. You love big bouncy dogs. You love puzzles. You love painting. You love birds, and owls particularly. You love knowing about stuff. You love talking. You love playing outside. You love gardening. You love figuring something out – how it fits together and works. You love swimming. You love jumping on the trampoline. You love climbing into bed. You love the covers over you.. until you don’t. You are frightened of worms, and chooks, when they follow you.
4. When you do this little “awwww” for yourself when you’ve been declined a particular request and you’re feeling sorry for yourself but just kind of trying your luck at being cute also.
5. The way you like to take your morning tea and go and sit somewhere outside to eat.. or if we are outside already, like on a picnic, that you prefer to walk away from the group and sit somewhere quietly by yourself to eat, and look around at things. You remind me of your great-grandfather.
6. That you are the kind of kid to lie on your back and watch the clouds.
7. You’re incredibly beautiful. I love looking at you – and holding you.
8. You’re so polite and sociable, it is a wonder to behold, especially after your sister. I find it fascinating to see how quickly you’ve learnt to use phrases that act as social graces.
9.  The way you adore so many people and get adored back. You really are a person who charms his way through life. Most incredible of all is the way you’re managed to get your punk-arse anti-social ‘black sheep’ of an uncle to fall in love with you. He now reads you stories, juggles for you, and carries you out to the car. Him, who wants nothing to do with children, who is too punk to crack a smile for anyone else. Absolutely delightful watching you two together.
10. That you’re so affectionate – you wrap your arms around my neck tightly, you jump into my arms, you like to grip my face and rub noses or blink eyelashes at each other. That your skin and limbs are still so soft and smooth and baby-like. Stroking your skin is pure tactile sugar.
11. You have started talking a lot in the last couple of months. Hearing your thoughts is rather lovely. Your most interesting thoughts so far have been some of the questions you’ve managed to put together. You talk a lot, too, and when you’re upset by something you like to talk about it over and over again.
12. You have just started swearing, your father and I each noticed separately. If we brake hard when we’re driving you will say “shit” or even.. “fuck”. I’d be more worried/humiliated but we’ve been through this before with Lauca and it all turned out ok.
13. You are a complete maniac on your dune buggy. You ride down a hill full speed with your toes shredded and bleeding from being used as brakes at the bottom. You’re fearless and you can command a considerable degree of control of a vehicle at high speed – does not bode well for your teenage years.

His.

1. The beautiful cuddles you give.
2. Watching you learn new abilities – everyday you acquire something new. Like right now you are really into numbers and counting and you try to count the stars in the sky, and you are still flat out counting to six.
3. You have started trying to organise me – you take me to a room with you in order to get you something you want.
4. When you can’t find something you say “can’t see it, can’t see it”.
5. You have started lying, it’s very cute. Like when you threw the books on the floor in front of us and then said “I didn’t, I didn’t”.
6. I love how proud you are of your art and craft, you say “I made this, I did it, I did it”.
7. Seeing how close you are with my family – the way you treat them so nicely, it is not what I am used to seeing, it is very special and it makes me feel the way I imagine lots of other parents get to regularly feel.
8. Watching you ride your dune buggy around and around the house.
9. I love that you are starting to learn to be less rough to the cat.
10. I really like how polite you are – you always say “thank you Daddy” and “you’re welcome” and if you bump into me you say “sorry Daddy, are you alright?”

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10 things we enjoy least about Cormac, aged 2 years and one quarter

See here for previous lists.

Mine.

1. The way you have started doing this freak-out panic shit whenever I move around the house to get stuff done. Just like your sister, what is with you two? When have I ever abandoned you?
2. The shit hole you have turned our house into. Granted, it’s not entirely your own work but you are most definitely the catalyst.
3. That you probably haven’t dropped a breastfeed since you were about nine months old – you’re still obsessed, night and day. I love breastfeeding. I love breastfeeding you. But I do a lot of resentful breastfeeding these days and I think it wouldn’t be like that if you could just drop a feed or two like a normal toddler.
4. The way you make a game out of annoying your sister.
5. Preparing food for you that you then decide you don’t want to eat. I really, really hate the number of meals I have to prepare in my life right now for everyone – and to have these futile meals on top of all that? Nightmare.
6. That you refuse to put warm clothes on, or an extra layer or whatever, and that you then get really cold and it makes you really grumpy. And if you have a t-shirt with an image on it that you really like you will refuse to wear a jacket or jumper over the top of it and we are in the middle of friggin’ winter so it is no time for short-sleeved t-shirts. (Trying to keep your favourite short-sleeved t-shirts out of your line of sight when we’re dressing you so you don’t see them and insist on wearing them).
7. You were my easy-going little ray of sunshine, my treat for all the hard work I’d put in to motherhood, so I have been taking your descent into toddlerdom horribleness rather hard.
8. I’m really over Wiggles.. for the second time in my life.
9. Watching how difficult you found the first term of Montessori playgroup – I remember it was this way with your sister, too, the first term is always so disheartening and you have been quite upset and offended and outraged at times with the teacher for all the things you try to do that she wants you to do differently. The fact that we are such informal eaters is causing you the most trouble. I dread you wanting to do any of the practical life activities at Montessori playgroup that involve food preparation because you so do not get the whole ‘prepare the food first and then clean up and then set the table and then sit down to eat it’ thing.
10. That nappy change struggles – I absolutely hate these and I really find myself dreading your nappy changes.
11. Because you are a wanderer I have to worry, in a way that I never did with your sister, about you drifting off somewhere and ending up doing something really dangerous, like drowning or something.
12. You’ve discovered nose-picking.
13. You throw stuff around the place to get our attention.

His.

1. With Lauca we didn’t particularly notice the ‘terrible twos’ but with you it has been a very obvious change. I don’t enjoy the sudden moodiness and I don’t like the way you throw yourself on the floor and smash your head into the ground when you are having a tantrum.
2. You have a real bug up your arse about choosing bedtime stories – you seem to want me to be in the play-room being part of the process with you. You get really upset about it and I have no idea what you’re trying to get me to do.
3. You can’t grow out of the swing on our deck soon enough.
4. How you get really upset wanting something out of the fridge but you have no idea what you want.. I have to hold you up so you can look in the fridge and say ‘no’ to everything.
5. Making you endless friggin’ meals that you never eat.
6. You have a huge tantrum about wanting yoghurt and then you have on spoonful and say “yuck” and then you move on to the next tantrum deciding that you want fish or a vitamin tablet. And maybe you do want to eat fish but you only want to eat it with the giraffe chopsticks (that are in the dishwasher) and you will only want to eat it by feeding yourself and while sitting on the couch. And if I try to say no to any part of that plan you have a big tantrum and throw yourself on the ground and then you’ll refuse to ever eat any part of that fish again. It has somehow been completely sullied for you.
7. How you have to have absolutely everything that Lauca has and she is pretty reasonable with you but you push your luck and the two of you end up in a huge fight over it.
8. All the biting! You’re quite unpredictable with it. I think you’re my little mate and the next minute you’re bored or something and suddenly I have tears streaming down my face trying to pry you and your fangs off me. Once you bit me on the face and I already had scabs on there from when you scratched the shit out of me.
9. You go around deliberately making a mess – you’ll tip out all of your blocks on the floor and then walk off, you just did it for the fun of making a mess.
10. You are going through a really clingy stage at the moment. Also, I would like to be able to go to the toilet by myself.

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10 things about Cormac, aged 18mths

More in the series here.

Mine.

1. I enjoy least the times you poo in the bath, which are numerous. Your sister never once did that. We will love her more if this keeps going.
2. I enjoy least the times you cling to my legs and grizzle while I am trying to get things done around the house. I also enjoy least giving in and carrying you on one hip while attempting to get things done around the house.
3. I enjoy least that you are the type of toddler to wander off/climb over a railing/and run towards a moving car.
4. I enjoy least your precocious understanding of violence – biting, pinching, scratching, kicking, head-butting, hitting, gouging, hair-pulling.. honestly, for someone so sweet-natured, with pacifist parents, you have a shitty collection of tricks. Also, once again I am destined to be the mother ostracised from playdates for having ‘the biter’.
5. I enjoy least your destructive tendencies – the way you will climb on to my desk just so you can pick everything up off it and hurl it, including unpacking my handbag and throwing the contents are far as you can across the floor. The way you sign ‘break/broken’ in such a cavalier way when you break things. I also enjoy least the fact that this means if I have you out at the shops I have to be either carrying you or keeping you strapped in a stroller, when actually, walking about is what you want and need to tire you.
6. I enjoy least that you take so long to fall asleep at night at the moment – we often spend almost an hour lying together on the bed before you finally fall asleep at 8.30-9.00pm. Granted, you are quite cheerful while we do that. You smile a lot, rub your nose against mine, roll about, kiss me, and breastfeed while doing 360 degree spins about the bed.
7. I enjoy least the way you decide you don’t want to eat the food item you asked for after I have finished preparing it for you.
8. I enjoy least scrambling to find things in the car, while I am driving, to keep you amused when you are getting bored and sad on car trips. How about this scrap of paper? This old bit of food you dropped here last time? My mobile phone?
9. I enjoy least reading the same books to you over and over again. We have a lot of toddler books and a lot of toddler books is not nearly enough.  We need a quantity closer to a shit load of toddler books. I enjoy least being the sort of person to have huge fines on my library card so we can’t just borrow books from the library.
10. I enjoy least that you are already starting to exercise some authority over what you will wear – seeing what we go through with your sister I have some idea where this will end, and it is mortifying. At the moment it is nothing worse than insisting you get dressed back into your PJ shirt because you like the elephant and giraffe on them.
11. I enjoy least that you put things in your mouth, especially when you suspect they are things I am going to take away from you – batteries, strange berries, assorted pieces of rubbish, buttons, coins, glow sticks, insect repellent etc. Sometimes you tell me that you have something disgusting in your mouth by coming up to me and pretending to spit something out.
12. I enjoy most your nickname for your sister, which has recently appeared in your vocabulary and it is ‘Nya-nya’. (Sounds a bit like the Spanish Ñ and makes a lot more sense if you know Lauca’s real name). You also often blend the sign we taught you for her, which is ‘sister’, with the sign for ‘crying/sad’, which makes a lot of sense because when we are talking about Lauca you know we are also often referring to the fact that she is wailing or screaming.
13. I enjoy most hearing you sing your first songs, which happened over the last couple of weeks – Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Incy Wincy Spider.
14. I enjoy most the way you love to do a version of “Happy If You Know It” where you stick out your tongue. You have a huge tongue. Your sister loves showing off this trick of yours and will regularly sing “Happy If You Know It” for you in front of people just so they can see you stick our your tongue.
15. I enjoy most your perfect little smacky kisses. The way you just come off mid-way through a breastfeed to lean up and kiss me.
16. I enjoy most getting to know your personality – how charming and vivacious and plucky you are. How pretty much nothing frightens you, except that giraffe puppet when your sister uses that screechy voice for it.
17. I enjoy most how much easier you are to put to sleep than your sister ever was. You don’t like it when I decide that an hour is more than enough breastfeeding in the middle of the night but you are quite reasonable about the disappointment. You don’t scream/sob/wallow.
18. I enjoy most when you dress yourself in necklaces and bracelets and carry handbags over your shoulder – you seem to mimic me putting on necklaces by tying rope around your neck a little less these days too, which is good, because you were always almost choking yourself. I didn’t enjoy it when you stole my mascara and put black ink all over the side of your face and hair.
19. I enjoy most watching you play with the cat. The cat enjoys it about 90% of the time. No, maybe 80% of the time.
20. I enjoy most how well you are picking up on Montessori – how you have learnt to wipe up your spills and put the cloth in the laundry basket, how you put your toys away (sometimes) after playing with them, how you like to eat your meals (even your snacks) at the table now.
21. I enjoy most your love of engine noises. How you stop in your tracks to enjoy a good engine noise – whether it be an aeroplane, a lawnmower, or a motorbike.
22. I enjoy most your fairly patient way of solving things for yourself. You are very independent. The way you get offended because we won’t let you feed yourself curry should be up there on my ‘enjoy least’ list though.  Speaking of which, how you hate to be thwarted. If you even think someone is trying to thwart you – you get violent with them. You hold on to grudges too, you will come all the way down the other end of the house to find me and whack me if you think I recently thwarted you.
23. I enjoy most your signing – it is bloody amazing to watch. Very clear signs, I really should photograph them; even people who don’t know signing can often guess eventually what you are telling them. I loved the time you managed to dob on your sister and you told me entirely in sign language. The time I tapped your hand away when you were breastfeeding because you were using it to pinch me and you sat up to sign to me that this made you feel ‘sad’. I love how excited you get when you successfully tell us something through your signs.
24. I enjoy a lot having a nanny and not having to go through daycare anxiety with you the way we did with your sister. Though poor Lauca probably could have done with the nanny and you would have coped better than her at daycare. I enjoy least that you correct some of your parenting mistakes with the second child and the poor first-born has to muddle through.
25. I enjoy most that you have started doing this little canter – which I think is you trying to skip – when you get really excited.
26. I love that you invented your own sign for music and that for some reason it is you casually head banging to an imaginary beat. Too cute.

Bill’s.

1. I enjoy least that you won’t Stay Out of The Fucking Freezer. It is just a matter of time before it happens where I don’t find the cat’s frozen chicken leg before it is too late.
2. I enjoy least the fact that you use the stools to stand on/climb on to the kitchen bench/to sit on but only perilously on the edge.
3. I enjoy least… well, please stop unplugging the peripherals from my computer.
4. I enjoy least that your idea of tickling is pinching/scratching.. and you think you are actually tickling because while you do it to me you say “tickle, tickle, tickle”.
5. I enjoy most the way you are currently endlessly reminiscing about the lizard incident in your sister’s bedroom.
6. I enjoy watching how quickly you pick up new signs at the moment.
7. I enjoyed the other day when we saw the wild ducks with their new ducklings and you turned to me excitedly and said “I waved that duck”.
8. I enjoy most that you obviously understand the things we say and I enjoy least that most of the things we say to you are met with “Nuh!”.
9. I enjoy most your love of books, which is as overwhelming as your sister’s has been. If I don’t read fast enough you start yelling at me “Da, Da, dat, dat”. (Dad, Dad, that, that).
10. I enjoy most your profound sense of order/rightness. If you get yourself a plate you will lay out a fresh place mat first and you always want to use your fork to eat with.
11. I enjoy most all the beautiful cuddles and kisses you give.

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10 things we enjoy most with Cormac age 12mths (just)

See more here.

Mine.

1. The way you have copied certain phrases you hear, like “I love you” and “Happy Birthday” and trying to blow us kisses by panting like a dog.
2. Other words you have said: Mummy (most often ‘Mam’), Daddy (most often ‘Da’, but also your father’s first name, just like your sister calls him), ball, bird, book, hello, bye, there, dog woof.
3. The signs you most use: Mummy, Daddy, eat, drink, breastfeed, sleep, hot, tree, bird, dog, cat, swing, bath, Grandmother, telephone, book/reading, ceiling fan, flower, hurt, baby, gentle, driving, dancing, finished, nappy change.
4. The way you hide little treasures like blocks and vegemite sandwiches in people’s shoes or vases and handbags. That you will go and pack your own water bottle into the nappy bag.
5. When you bring me my shoes and insist I put them on.
6. Yesterday morning when your sister was crying on the floor and you came up to her and patted her and I thought what a coincidence, right now that almost looks like sympathy from a one year old, and then you hugged her and kissed her and there was no coincidence, you really were showing sympathy as a one year old!
7. The way you Brrrm everything. You are such a gender stereotype, so obsessed with all engine noises, including my hair-dryer. The look on your face when someone holds you up high enough to push the lawn mower.
8. That Happy Birthday is your favourite song. Your sister hates being sung that song, and what a contrast you two are. That you enjoy socialising and that you can handle a party without losing it after an hour.
9. The way your father says “keep it together, man” when you are getting grizzly. I find him quite adorable for that.
10. How you and the cat lie on the bed together rolling about gently nibbling one another and batting at one another like kittens. You are not always gentle enough but the cat actually seeks you out, it is very strange behaviour for a cat.
11. Your husky little giggle: how your sister tickles you by rubbing her head on your belly.
12. The way you have already moved on from ride-ons and now only want to be riding a bicycle like your sister does – how I saw you climbing on to her bike when it was leant against the fence, trying to get your fat little leg over it and reaching for the handlebars.
13. The way you smile at people, so warmly, so charmingly; that certain friends have nicknamed you the Dalai Lama. That you can wave bye-bye so beautifully; it took ages for your sister to learn how to do that, she just couldn’t see the point in engaging with someone just because they are leaving when she was being dismissive of them in the first place.
14. That people everywhere tell me how beautiful your brown eyes are – you got them from me, mister.
15. That your favourite foods are strawberries and olives.
16. That you sleep so much better than your sister did as a baby. That when you wake up in the night you don’t cry if I am there, you just feed and go back to sleep.. and even on those rare occasions where you are having trouble getting back to sleep you don’t grizzle you just roll about sighing a lot. That other people can easily get you to sleep for your naps when I am away from you.
17. That you run around shrieking when you’re being playful – you so learnt that from your sister. Watching you two play is one of my favourite experience in life.

His.

1. Watching you play chasey with your big sister.
2. How you like to play peek-a-boo with me.
3. How quick you are to learn and copy new things.
4. When you give yourself a clap for learning something new, how you look a little disappointed when I forget to give you a clap as well.
5. You are tired and grumpy in the evenings but I can still get dinner cooked as long as I have a jar of (pitted) kalamata olives handy to feed you.
6. When you consoled your sister the other day when she was crying – a pat, a kiss and a cuddle. The cutest thing!
7. Despite all the chaos that is frequently going on around you, you are still able to just go along happily about your one year old business. You are completely unfazed by all the yelling.
8. Having my one day each week working from home and being with you.
9. Hearing you call out “Da” to me.
10. How you always want to do grown up things, like your most prized toy is my little transistor radio which you carry by its strap and sling over your shoulder as you walk, listening to it talk.

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10 things we enjoy least with Cormac aged 12mths (just)

See others here.

Mine.

1. That this stage involves so much falling over and hurting oneself, and that on top of that your father fell over this weekend while carrying you and hurt you both. You ended up with stitches above your eyebrow and he ended up with a broken arm. Was not fun for any of us. Poor you.
2. That you can sleep through the night, you did it once when you were one year and one day old (from 8pm-6.30am), but you don’t. The hours from 2am to 6am when you quite often wake incredibly frequently. And particularly on my work nights where you are either looking for reassurance or supplementing missed feeds from the day but either way it makes me rather tired for work.
3. That we are the kind of parents who give our toddler food to eat and then let him wander around with it and then have to run around everywhere afterwards cleaning it all up.
4. The way you post food you are sick of down my cleavage while I am holding you.
5. When you put my Ray Bans in the dishwasher.
6. Nappy changes. Oh, how I still remember hating nappy changes from the first time around and I have grown no more fondness for this struggle with an unco-operative and pantless baby the second time around.
7. The way you bite your family when you are really tired and no-one has taken you to bed. Other annoying things you do only when you are really bug-eyed tired is claw your family’s faces off and sometimes hit yourself.
8. That you have started tantrums already. The going limp, the throwing yourself backwards, the bowing on the ground with your head down and wailing.
9. Letting you play with the telephone and how now when I go to use the phone you cry angrily at me for not giving you your precious ‘toy’ phone back and how could I then play with that in front of you? Also, you have broken four phones, my computer mouse, my glasses and my sunglasses and I am such an idiot for letting you.
10. That you have started to run-toddle away from me sometimes when I am coming to get you and how I know I shouldn’t let this turn into a game because it will one day be dangerous but it is so goddamn cute when you giggle and run-toddle, checking over your shoulder that I haven’t caught up to you yet.
11. Being away from you at work for three long days each week and knowing that you don’t have me (or my breastmilk) when you are feeling tired and sad. (Although each evening returning home from work feels like Christmas; the sense of anticipation is so exciting for me).
12. When you get grizzly and won’t be held by anyone else but me and my back is aching and I want to get on with things, and how easy you make it for your father to get out of it all.
13. Some of the things that I have become slack about as a mother this second time around: cleaning baby’s ears; insisting that you not be fed biscuits/cake/icecream; playgroups and socialising with other babies; and a bunch of other things I am too ashamed to admit.
14. Endlessly supervising you so you don’t mess up whatever your sister is doing/playing, particularly if she has a friend over to play.

His.

1. You are finally developing a tiny little heart. Though it is still a lot bigger than your sister’s.
2. The whingeing (only happens when you are tired or hungry or bored or lonely, but you add those up and it is quite a bit).
3. The nappy change struggle.
4. The big cut on your head that reminds me how I fell over while carrying you and dropped you on the ground.
5. How obsessed you are with climbing on top of everything combined with no concept of being able to fall.
6. The book PETS, after reading it eight times in a row that one gets a bit boring.

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10 things we enjoy most about the baby (aged 7mths)

(See previous lists here).

Mine.

1. Your babbling, which is delicious to the ear. The “mam, mam, mmmm, mam”, the “bub, bub, ba, ba, bbb, ba”, and the “da, da, dad”. Also all the mad raspberry blowing. And the spittley “kkkkkkkkkk” at the back of your mouth. The times when (you seem) to use “mum” and “dad” appropriately and “ba” when we were playing with the ball.

2. From about 4 months you’ve laughed whenever you’ve seen me laugh, and it is very pleasant sharing a case of the giggles with a baby. I first realised this when I was carrying you in a sling and I was laughing at your sister riding a flying fox when I heard this little chuckle and I looked down into my sling to see you watching me transfixed, earnestly trying to share the joke.

3. You smile at everyone, you have been massaged to sleep, you self-soothe, you do a bunch of things I heard a LOT about the first time around with your sister but came to believe were cruel hoaxes the world plays on new parents by telling them is possible with a baby.

4. The magic of watching milestones of development appear out of nowhere in a growing baby. And if you think parents are proud of their milestones you should see how proud babies are of their milestones. Like one day you could clap, and then you clapped and clapped and clapped and you were so thrilled with yourself. Sometimes when I talk about the cat you will start merrily clapping, like you think ‘cat’ sounds like ‘clap’ and that reminds you how amazingly cool clapping is. Right now we are working on you waving goodbye. And you can pull yourself to stand up and don’t you just think that is hot shit. And yet, other milestones, really significant ones that you’ve worked hard to master happen without you appearing to even notice them. For instance, when you started to properly crawl a few weeks ago you didn’t seem aware that something was now very very different in your world.

5. How well you have taken to self-led feeding. I am totally converted.

6. Hearing your grandmother and great-grandmother think that you look like your long-departed, much-loved, very handsome great-grandfather. Behold the eyelashes and dimple.

7. This is a shallow one, but all the compliments I get for you. Everyone loves you, complete strangers stop and tell me how beautiful you are, regularly. On the plane two different people photographed you to capture your smile. I can really see now how much the world rewards an extrovert, after having a spirited introvert baby (in your sister) before you, I actually think it is kind of unfair.

8. Sharing the nights with you. Having your adorable little self sleeping (more or less) peacefully beside me or in the side-bed next to me. And being so spoilt with these nights because we mostly have them to ourselves in a king size bed.

9. The way you make me feel quite accomplished as a parent. This time I know stuff about babies, and it is stuff that works. I really like this.

10. Every now and then on a day when your sister is at kindergarten you will have a three-hour nap and I am in heaven. Three whole hours, in a quiet house, by myself. Bliss. And this time around I know that just because babies can nap for three hours doesn’t mean they always will, or even usually will, so I take it for what it is, a little bit of good fortune, destined not to happen again for a good long time.

11. The fact that your sister’s presence is enough to entertain you. I can get things done while you two hang out in the playroom! Several times for up to an hour by yourselves. And oh how she thrills you. You think she is the ants pants. But I am still longing to see you kiss her cheek, grab for her hand, or try to pronounce her name.

12. That you won’t stay on the picnic rug, that you crawl off on to the dirt and the sticks and the leaves. You remind me of your father. I also like how the cat will always find you outside and come and sit with you. How you two seek each other out and seem to take genuine pleasure in one another’s company.

13. The way you cuddle my neck, or lay your head on my chest when I pick you up. The way you crawl to me and touch my lap for reassurance.

14. Your little squeals of anger, which have just begun to appear during particularly tedious nappy changes. I am glad you are able to assert yourself, everyone needs to be able to express anger.

15. Your brown eyes. Your dark brows. Your big hands and long fingers. Your six (sharp) little teeth. Your pretty face. Your long torso. Your strong legs. And yes, your ready smile.

16.  Like your sister you have a very long attention span and quite a deal of focus. Go independent you!

17. Seeing your personality emerge, seeing how fascinatingly different you are to your sister. Wondering who you will be.

His.

1. Watching you learn new skills, like clapping and then being able to clap if you hear the word ‘clap’.

2. Tickling you, you are one of the most ticklish creatures ever.

3. That I get the best hour of your day because I get you first thing in the morning when you are absolutely delightful and incredibly relaxed and friendly and chatty. It is unfortunate that I spend most of this time also getting ready for work.

4. Getting to know you and who you are.

5. Watching you interact with your sister. Seeing that already you have some kind of secret sibling language where you can lock eyes together and giggle.

6. I have really enjoyed starting baby gym classes with you. And it is nice not being the parent of the baby who is disrupting the entire class because she has just hit somebody.

7. Child-led feeding. I haven’t mashed anything for you yet – and I like it!

8. That you don’t have a tiny little heart, that you have room for your Daddy in your heart too. Unlike some people we could name.

9. I like watching you flap your arms to indicate that you want to be picked up. Like Tyrannosaurus Rex, holding your arms down by your sides and flapping them crazily.

10. That you enjoy me reading to you. You are intensely focused on my reading. You love being sung to also, you love the engagement with people.

11. The way you call “dad, da, da” after me if you think I have abandoned you in a room.

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Things we enjoy least about the baby aged 7mths

(Find previous lists here).

Mine.

1. That you need a wind down routine in order to go to sleep, just like your sister does, so you’d think we’d know how to do such a thing by now. In the evenings I want to go straight from the last gasp of chaos that is dinner, to you in bed asleep instantly, and me finally free for the night.

2. That you weigh 10 kg and that you like to be carried a lot.

3. The separation anxiety. How whenever I need to leave you for a tiny moment – to go to the toilet, put a load of washing on, grab a hairbrush for your sister’s hair, grab a bib, close the door, get your sister a drink, or answer the phone etc etc – that you will start wailing and crawling desperately (and rather hopelessly, because you are still mostly comando crawling, which isn’t all that efficient really) towards my direction of the house. Then.. the subsequent carrying you around with me everywhere and see point 2 above. If you think the washing is a sucky job, try doing it while also lugging 10 kg around with you.

4. Having to make sure that you have something to nibble on every time I manage to grab something for myself to eat. That I spend the day either in a state of starvation or stuffing something in my mouth quicker than I can taste it.

5. The buckling and the unbuckling of three sets of seat belts for you, your sister and I every time I want to get in and out of the car. Sometimes it feels like I am dying a slow death of seat belts.

6. My low blood sugar in the morning when I wake after a night of feeding you and not getting a chance to eat until about morning tea time when your sister is dropped at kindergarten and you’ve gone down for your nap. How intolerant I start to feel when I am that hungry.

7. All the many, many times that your father and sister forget that you are sleeping and they go around the house holding conversations with each other at incredibly high volumes, for some unknown fucking reason.

8. That you won’t transfer asleep from the car to the house or the pram to the car etc. That you won’t go back to sleep even though you are clearly tired and still need more sleep. Still, up side: you are much happier when you are tired than your sister ever was/is and you will occasionally go back to sleep again after a breastfeed, which is still more than your sister would.

9. That by the time it is cool enough to walk in the evenings it is getting close to your bath/dinner time and you get stroppy at the mid-point of the walk and I end up carrying you and pushing the pram simultaneously. And that your favourite sling to be carried in is the one that gives me a sore neck if used for any distance. Also, see point number 2 above.

10. Now that you can crawl so fast I have to know where you are every second of the day (and as if my day wasn’t already over-scheduled with baby-tasks) because the house isn’t baby-proof, and because apart from anything else we live with a four year old who owns mountains of crap, and some of it is very small choking-hazard crap, and anyway, this time around I have the unrealistic hope that we can avoid that whole taking apart the house to make it ‘toddler-proof but seriously ugly’ stage.

11. When you won’t sleep without a nipple in your mouth, but you also won’t let that nipple leave the bedroom with you and sit somewhere more interesting, like in front of a computer or a DVD or back at the lunch party. The nipple is bored!

12. The scratch scratchy scratchies with your sharp little baby claws on my soft, naked breasts while you drift off to sleep. And I think, how, how could I have forgotten to clip your nails today?

13. Worrying constantly about you crawling or rolling your way off beds (even with their guard rails) and even your little low-to-the-ground side-bed, and that time when you crawled your way out of our bed and fell to the floor with a loud thump and a terribly sad cry, eyes still clenched asleep.

14. How you lean out of my arms to look at the ground while I am carrying you, this increases your weight by about a factor of three. Also refer to point 2 above.

His.

1. Deteriorating quality of the nappy changes as you eat more ‘solids’.

2. I wish you’d stop falling backwards out of ‘Montessori corner” (ie. a corner of the playroom that your mother has supposedly set up under Montessori instructions).

3. Realising that I can’t actually parent more than one child at a time. Not something I can do.

4. The fact that taking the two of you kids out anywhere with me becomes all too much. Buying a loaf of bread becomes a major ordeal.

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10 things we enjoy with Cormac most (age 3mths and a bit)

See here for what wasn’t so peachy at three months of age.

Mine.

1. Those first nights together, except for the very first night which was spent with you wide awake for about eight hours constantly feeding (and I am not even joking and didn’t we think we had another ‘killer’ baby on our hands), where we cocooned together in your sister’s bed (so she could keep her infectious self away with her infectious father in the parental bedroom). And getting to know you, all by myself in the lamplight when we woke for you to feed, and that feeling of complete intimacy and isolation in the dead of night, when we may just as well have been living all alone on another planet.

2. Watching your milestones unfold. It still boggles my mind that babies’ development is so predictable. Why do you discover your hands now? And why do you start smiling then? And how did you roll over?

3.  The joy, the utter joy your sister expresses at your existence. And finally at three months you were able to show your joy in return, at her existence.

4. Your brown eyes, and as the days go by it becomes increasingly clear to everyone that they are indeed brown eyes, that they’re not budging, that they’re as brown as mine.

5. When you finally start to enjoy baths and we’re no longer participating in a ritual of grievance for you each day. You kick and kick for all you’re worth. You’re a fish, boy, a fish. And now you love baths.

6. When my sister comes to meet you and stays for a week. She falls in love with you instantly and she holds you and tears up. She gets up to you early in the mornings so I can return to bed for another urgent half hour or so, and even when you explode poo all over yourself and everything around you she doesn’t dare ruin my little sleep-in. She says when she holds you that you get an expression on your face like “are you authorised?”.

7. The clothes you’ve been given. They are adorable. And I’ve been made to realise my hypocrisy when I said that I don’t like little boys dressed as little men. Because I love you dressed in a Threadless t-shirt and sweat pants and that is exactly how your father and your uncles dress. Turns out when I said I don’t like little boys dressed like little men I meant the kind of men’s clothes I don’t like men dressed in either – football jerseys and chambray shirts and polo shirts with the collars turned up.

8.  Taking you away for your first holiday. At the beach. With one of my closest friends and our children. Dipping your toes into the sand, walking home in the evening and watching you in the sling watching the stars. Seeing the way the other children fall in love with you. Laying you on a picnic blanket on the sand so you can hear the waves, and your sister squealing with delight as she springs over the waves.

9. The way you so quickly get to know me and your life. The way you can anticipate the steps towards a breastfeed. The way you don’t worry so much anymore that something you want won’t happen ever again. Like being picked up, or being fed. The way you roll yourself across the bed to find me.

10. You smile and smile and smile.. at everyone. I can’t believe it. You are so cheerful. You’re completely sweet. You’re terribly charming. You melt people’s hearts – it is not only women who stop to admire you, but men do too. Your father and I cannot believe that we are capable of producing such sunshine.

11. Other people can hold you, which makes it much easier for you to be admired, and much easier for me to get a break.

12. Loving my body. Its ability to expand so impressively to hold you and likewise, its ability to snap back, more or less, into a non-pregnant form. OK, those months and months where I was too tired to exercise while pregnant sure show now but apart from that, not bad, not bad at all.

13. Watching you watch the world. Outside, on a blanket, in the sun, with no nappy on, and you stop to watch the breeze move the leaves.

14. You have, in the last month or so, really started to cuddle back and it is ever so lovely. You wrap your chubby little hands around my neck and sink your face into me. It is beyond description. It is so beautiful.

15. You sleep through the night, a couple of times even, and isn’t this really really early for such a milestone? It is compared to last time. We seriously didn’t know babies could be this easy. Thank you, thank you.

His.

1. Your cuddles.

2. Bath time – watching you go ‘cracker baby’.

3.  Seeing the differences between you and your sister.

4. Watching you and Lauca play together, like the way you sit and look into each other’s eyes and laugh.

5. Finding this time around as a father with a newborn a lot more rewarding, you engage with me and are happy to see me where as Lauca was always sad to be apart from her Mummy at this age.

6. Being able to make you laugh by woofing at you like a dog.

7. That feeling, though I fought getting my hopes up, that you were turning out to be an easier baby.

8. Finding that you had my dimple on your cheek, but we had to wait until you got incredibly fat to be able to see it.

9. Tickling your thighs.

10. Watching you blow yourself a milky moustache with all your raspberry blowing.

Alright, if you must. Compare Cormac with Lauca at the same age.

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10 things we enjoy least with Cormac (age 3mths)

See also here for what was just grand at three months of age.

Mine.

1. The breathing difficulties that came with your bronchialitis. The way you choked and gasped and couldn’t draw breath and then did and screamed and sunk into my arms.

2. Some breastfeeding difficulties again. Oh babies and your tiny pinchy mouths. Oh nipples, why get so big right when you’re needed for a tiny baby’s mouth? Every time I think we’ve reached a point of no return and resign myself to making an appointment with the lactation consultant I manage to nut out the problem and turn us around again. One day I take you off my breast and find blood running out of your vampiric little mouth. (The nights were the worst. I was too tired to bother waking properly to latch you on better, and anyway, you were this tiny little form laying on the bed next to me in the near dark, and you mauled my nipples in repayment).

3. Worrying about you getting sick all the time. (Don’t mean to disrespect your parenting choices, each to their own and stuff, but vaccinate already please). And not just the serious sicknesses but the colds and flu, and trying to quiet the low growl in me when everyone’s runny-nosed little toddlers come up to you to touch your face and your hands. Yes, building his immunity, oh good, but then he gets bronchialitis and wheezes and pants and tries to draw breath and I imagine the worst.

4. The tension over your name. I’ll tell you more about this story when you’re a lot older.

5. Any time I hear your pain cry. Like when you sister twirls about and falls on you, or I snip the end of your finger trying to cut your fingernails.

6. Giving you antibiotics when you get your third bout of bronchialitis in a row and the doctor thinks you might end up in hospital. The way antibiotics play havoc with your digestion and you get nappy rash for the first time. And yet, I’m thankful, so thankful that I live in the era of antibiotics. The poor mothers who came before me.

7. The nights when you catch me out in my complacency and you wake every hour or so for the entire night and I’ve come to bed late. (But I’m grateful, cos I can still only count these on one hand and I know how bad it can get with some babies, who shall remain nameless). Also, the evenings when it isn’t so easy to get you to sleep and my nipples are red raw from us both using them to try to lull you to sleep. And I have to pace and jiggle with you as well, when I am aching to rest (again, counted on one hand). Or even the evenings, which are far more frequent, when I don’t have to walk with you, but instead lay trapped on the bed with you for several hours keeping you asleep. All I want is to clock off for the night, to leave the bedroom, and see what the rest of the world has to offer.

8. The hormonal rollercoaster at the beginning of new motherhood, when I feel the walls close in around me and I cry all the time. This time it only lasted a matter of days instead of weeks. Also, the sheer panic, wondering how on earth I would possibly manage two children alone. The morning race to kindergarten, and when your bronchialitis was so bad that we couldn’t leave the bedroom in the mornings (with its humidifier and heater) and I had to do everything in getting you and your sister ready while inside the bedroom. Argh.

9. Finding myself ‘too touched out’ by the demands of attachment parenting an infant to even want to cuddle Lauca. Very sad.

10. When you get too full and bored with feeding and you bite me. You have two sharp teeth. They came rather early.

11. When all my ‘mother dates’ fall through and you and I find the days long together. It still amazes me how early boredom and disgruntlement can arrive in a human baby’s life.

His.

1. I can honestly say that there is not anything I don’t like right now.

You know you want to, compare Lauca with Cormac at this age.

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