Peace at Last

I have a new favourite moment of the day. It comes sometime between 6.30pm and 7.00pm. The new moment is blissful, peaceful and so full of love I could just eat it. Can you eat a moment? I want to eat this one.

Firstly, Duck goes to bed. Somehow, largely thanks to my hard working husband, the 11 month old whose sleep patterns nearly killed me has turned into a 1 year old whose sleep patterns are edging towards actual real-life normality. He goes to bed. Just like that. Then he's asleep. It's weird to be honest. I love it. But that's not the moment. After I lay a 'sleepy but awake' Duck  (check me out, just like the books say!) down next to his huge Iggle Piggle (a cuddly toy that is almost as big as him), I come downstairs.

I find my big grown up, pant-wearing (as yet unsuccessfully) Bambi watching TV. None of your babyish shows for him anymore, oh no, now he's all about Gigglebiz, which is a bit like the Fast Show... a lot like the Fast Show, but with Mr Tumble in. Next to him is my husband who always, ALWAYS, gets tired when it's the boys' bedtimes. I like to think my mood-lighting and bedtime routine voice is just so soporific that even adults can't resist its charms. They are lying together on the floor, Bambi is awake, Daddy is more often than not, asleep. That's pretty cute, but it's not my new favourite moment.

The 3rd Christmas is the sweetest

Bambi will be 2 1/2 this Christmas. It's his 3rd one, technically but will be his first proper one. The first one he can anticipate, the first time he knows who Father Christmas is, the first time he'll have to buy present for people and keep them a surprise.

His first Christmas he was only 6 months old. I spent the day predominantly worrying about whether we could alter his life-consuming nap schedule to correlate with his other baby cousins' naps for us all to have dinner together. (We did but dinner lasted approximately 10 minutes due to 2 babies and a 2 year old whose naps were all out of whack!)

His second Christmas was about as special a Christmas as you could ever have, in retrospect. At the time it was a bizarre kind of dream. He was 18 months old and had been whisked away at bedtime 2 nights before Christmas to Granny's house, where he spent 2 days with cousins and uncles and aunts, being spoiled rotten. On Christmas morning he opened one present with his cousins before getting in the car to come home. He walked into our house to find a brand new, tiny, sleeping baby brother in a Moses basket surrounded by other presents. It makes me weep to think about their first meeting on the Christmas morning but of course he won't remember it, and wouldn't have understood the significance of the moment anyway. 

Everything fun when you're nearly one

Duck is one in a couple of weeks. Poor Duck, not only is he our neglected second born but we also landed him with the terrible affliction of a Christmas birthday. Despite these trials he is the cutest, happiest, loveliest little person I know.

I think nearly one year olds are my favourite age of baby. They still snuggle up with you at nap times and bedtime, and in my case they still breastfeed, but not so often that it's annoying! You get all the lovely warm fuzzy feelings of holding your baby while they still (just about) fit in your arms, but they are also growing in confidence and independence every day which makes entertaining them less intense and exhausting.

My favourite thing about nearly one year olds is how easily pleased they are! 

Duck's face still lights up when you sing action songs, or make clip clip horse noises. You can have him in fits of giggles with an elaborate sneeze and the old classic peekaboo still gets a great reaction. He finds me and Daddy pretty funny but his giggling turns right up to 11 when Bambi 'does a turn'.

Here's some of the things Duck LOVES to do when he's not being sung to or entertained by his trio of clowns. You can tell he loves them by his massive grin, hand clapping and general happy noises or by his amazing infectious laugh.