Advance Warning. This post contains scenes of sappiness not normally associated with a good English upbringing and natural reticence to say daft soft things in public.
I think I've mentioned before that I am really, really enjoying Sam's babyhood. It is so unlikely that we will have another that I find myself drinking in every second of this time with him, wanting to elongate it and stretch it and force time to slow so that I can have as much of it as I can. He's already 10 weeks, no longer a newborn, and I'm already packing away his outgrown baby clothes.
I don't know why it is that I'm enjoying this baby, my third, so much. I love all three of my boys with an intensity that I never knew I was capable of, but I didn't always enjoy their babyhood.
I think the first was a shock to my system that I just wasn't prepared for. Looking back now I can see that Adam was an angelic baby, sleeping, feeding, cooing and doing all those lovely baby things. But I hadn't prepared myself for how time consuming parenthood would be, how relentless. I won't say that I found it hard (that was to come later) but I certainly didn't take the pleasure in his baby time that I am now with Sam.
Luke was my second, arriving 19 months after Adam. We had no idea what had hit us. He is a force of nature now, he was a force of nature then. The toddler baby combination nearly finished me off. I was incredibly tired and, in hindsight, incredibly stressed. This really was relentless parenting, there was no let up. I remember at one point crying to Dave 'I just need 3 hours sleep, then I'll be fine'. I adore my middle son, he is a cheeky, straightforward bundle of energy who will enjoy life enormously as he gets older, but he was hard work as a baby. Hard, hard work (so worth it to get our little lad) but enjoyable? No.
But Sam? Oh I am just adoring this time. In someways it is all working out. The bigger boys are at school in the morning so I have some time alone with him, to gurgle and coo to laugh and smile. Then Luke arrives back home at 12 for a bit more energy and variety and Adam is back at 3. The day has structure and mayhem to it, it doesn't stretch out endlessly as it did with just one baby. But the day also has calm moments when it is just Sam and I getting to know each other. The balance is working well for me.
Anyway, there is a song on the radio a lot at the moment that, although I don't particularly like it and certainly don't think to be the best version, has taken on a particular resonance for me and will always bring me back to this time, Sam's baby time.
So Sam, I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words - how wonderful life is now you're in the world.