There are good things, punkin, about living so far away from everyone else in the world.
The primary good thing is that, when people come to see you from far away, they stay for long enough that you feel like you really got some quality time with them.
The flip side of that is that, once they go home again, you're left feeling completely emotionally drained.
These people we love, they live so far away. We can call them and talk to them on the internet and send them photos of you but that's not enough. When people arrive (from behind the big sliding doors at the airport, which is where I think you've decided grandmothers come from), they reach out for you, and when they leave, you're the last person they say goodbye to.
Someone much cleverer than me came up with the term "bundle of joy". Certainly, with as much as you're wriggling around these days, it would be better to call you a "wriggle of joy", but the metaphor stands.
You bring joy, Bram, to those around you.
People have been telling us from day one that you're a goodlooking baby. With your dad's genes, there was little hope of avoiding that, but I think there's more to it than that.
It's no accident that I post lots of photos of you smiling, angel. I certainly take a lot of photos, this is a well known fact, but I wouldn't be able to post any if you weren't predisposed to the way you are. Everytime I look at you, unless you're in your pre-nap grumpy phase (which, to be fair, can last up to fourteen days), you're smiling at me. You smile at me, and your mum, and your grandparents and your great-grandparents and your aunts and uncles and godparents and friends and the lady at the supermarket and the dogs, punkin, like your face is about to break. Like there's too much love in your tiny body and it has to get out somehow. Like your sole purpose is to make people smile back at you.
It's that... skill, that ability that makes you the joy to be around. That takes me through the dark hours when you wriggle and scream. That makes me wish, almost as soon as you've gone to sleep (ok maybe two hours later), that you'll wake up again so we can keep playing.
Love you.
1 comment:
Hello my darling Brambill,
In one very important way you DO NOT take after your father. He would never wear a hat when he was a baby, let alone a silly one.
I think you need Rowdy and Grandad Phil to rescue you - poor boy, you aren't getting anything to eat (all of it seems spread around, I doubt that any got in your mouth) AND your parents are making you wear silly hats AND taking photos of you.
I love you dear boy, and your parents, and your aunts and uncles and the puppies
XXX
Rowdy
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