Happy Half-birthday Theodore

A very happy half-birthday to my beautiful son and heir, Theodore. My little boy is six months old today. Here is an open letter to him to mark this day. 

Dear Little One, 

It seems a work of fiction that it should be six months since I nervously climbed into the lift up to the induction suite to begin our journey. 

Six months since I needed to find a strength I did not know was in me. Six months since I first gazed into a pair of calm blue eyes that looked like they’d seen the world before. 

The journey since has been amazing – sometimes challenging, often frightening but always joyful. 

Becoming your mother has been the greatest privilege of my life, but far from what I expected. As a not especially broody person, who thought of having a family ‘one day’ in a hazy, far-off tomorrow, those expectations were low when tomorrow came. I expected the sleepless nights, the loss of a social life, the baby sick down my tops. I expected the daily chore of nappies and the bags under my eyes. 

But what I didn’t expect was the joy. The big, fat, weighty punch of joy I get in my stomach every morning I wake up and see your shining face. The loopy-in-love, ecstatic joy I get when you giggle. The bittersweet, poignant joy I get when you do something new for the first time, marching relentlessly away from babyhood. 

Even as I cheer you on with a full heart I feel the shadow of something else- of time slipping away. For you have made me feel more than myself, superhuman, because I know I can and would move mountains if your heart desired it. 

But you have also made me feel vulnerable, curiously human. 

You have given me something to treasure, something I jealously guard and fear forever slipping away. You have given me something to lose, tilted the roulette table, raised the stakes. 

Six months ago, I felt pain that was bigger than myself. It shot through every cell, sinew and tendon. Now I know that the reason for a pain bigger than my body could only be to create a love that is also bigger than me. To create hopes, dreams and tenderness outside of myself. To set my heart free from its prison of flesh and set it running around within you. 

You are still a chapter unwritten. You wobble fearlessly to your future, as is your right. You have learned to bounce, to hold a spoon, to sit shakily and to flirt with waitresses , doctors and old ladies at bus stops. You have learned to smile and dance and shout out loud. 

I could not be more proud of each and every thing you do. Watching your little personality unfold like a spring blossom has taught me more than I ever hoped to know. It has given my days light and my nights wonder to watch you grow. 

People often talk to me of what a mother gives to their child. They may not know how much you give to me. A balm for my restless soul. A new purpose to guide me. A sense of something found where I never knew anything was missing. A delirious love that overflows my heart, wipes away my well – practiced cynicism and leaves my dignity at the door. 

You are a lesson that is only just beginning, and I couldn’t be more eager to keep learning. 

So thank you for my six months and counting of being your mother. Thank you for the giggles, and the silly songs, the midnight cuddles and the bath time splashes. 

Thank you for being mine, little one.  Here’s to your future yet to be written.