Four Months With Baby Dexi
Dear Dexter,
I have had the most beautiful month with you, My Sweetheart. For the first time since you were born, time doesn’t seem to matter at all. I can only assume it went fast, as all months do when you are watching your children grow up… but we have all been lost in it somewhere, in the days that made you four months old. Before now, you have been our baby boy. You have cooed, smiled, laughed and all of it has been oh so sweetly. You have shown such love for us, we who love you the most of all. We have fallen in love with your sweet baby days and everything that has come with it. Noah and Ellenah have held you in their arms, felt the weight of your long, squishy thighed body. Daddy has talked with you, softly and let your laughing eyes steal pieces of his heart. I have stroked your beautiful face, your soft, flawless skin until you have fallen asleep. I’ve felt your heavy breath and shallow but gruff snore on my face, when you have slept in the nook of my neck. I have stayed with you, in the darkness as the ‘O’Clocks’ that I had long forgotten actually exist in the night, pass us by and you want to do nothing but look into my eyes. I have been there waiting for sunrise with you. Doing everything that I can to make you happy. Everything to prevent a tear or sad thought. Everything to give you a happy start in your happy life.
But… Somewhere in your fourth month, things changed. I started to catch glimpses of you, as much more than ‘our baby boy’. You have been trying on ‘Dexter James’ for size. Dexter with your weird and wonderful ways. Your little but big personality traits. Your opinions. Your thoughts. Your likes and dislikes. Your expressions. It has been so exciting to meet this part of you. It’s going to be so much fun getting to know this side of you.
I thought that seeing you change so much would make me sad. And you know, it does… because you are my last baby and this is the last time that I will have this chapter again… but, you are so delicious and eager to figure this world out and for that reason, I’m happy for you and excited for you. I’m in love with the feeling in my heart, that reminds me that I get to see the world through your eyes with you and the reminder that I have the privilege to introduce you to your life.
Dexi, I love it so much when you fall in love with things. Your face lights up, full of pure joy. When I read you ‘The Gruffalo’ in a silly voice, sing ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes’, giving my all to the actions and when we watch Thomas The Tank Engine together… you coo loudly, you giggle and you become wide eyed and coy. You get so excited.
My darling, you love playing with our hands, stroking our arms and I can tell that you feel great comfort in stroking our skin as you pull our arms into and around you. You are still as affectionate as ever. Still wanting to be protected, safe and feeling secure constantly.
You suddenly can’t wait to join in with Noah and Ellenah. You watch them play with anticipation and love in your eyes. I feel like sometimes, I can see you thinking… almost as if you are dreaming of the day when not too far from now, you will be able to play with them. I can see how much you already admire them both. You follow them with your eyes, smile when they so much as glance in your direction and you are interested in everything that is theirs. Everything that they will always give to you willingly, if you have made even the smallest sound about wanting it. Dexter, I just know that they would do anything for you, anything in this world to make you happy. They are dreaming of that day, not too far from now, when you can play with them too.
They made you a little tent the other day. You were playing on your play mat and they hung your favourite swaddle muslin over the top. You were delighted. They watched you like hawks, so no danger or harm could ever come to you. They lay inside with you, looking up together at your reflections in the mirror. You smiled, laughed and cuddled. You were so happy.
I was so happy. Looking upon my three beautiful babies, bonding and making memories… It made my heart ever so warm and complete. In that moment, I wondered if things could ever be better than this. I remember taking a deep breath and thinking, ‘Wow, this is us!’ … and it was quite a special moment in time.
You are desperately trying to move around now Sweetpea. I don’t know if it is the desperation to keep up with your siblings or because you are busy by nature… but I like to think that it is because you have an adventurous heart. You rolled for the first time this month. On the 23rd of October. Just three and a half months old. You rolled from your front to your back. If you had enough upper body strength, you would have crawled off by now too. You have been lifting your legs, trying to shift them forward from underneath you for a while too… but your body goes nowhere. Yay, I have a little longer before we celebrate that milestone. Yay because I can continue to tickle you in the folds of your neck to hear that dirty belly laugh, without you being able to crawl away.
You look lovely in Autumn Dexi, your first Autumn. We have wrapped you up a little warmer lately, to keep you from getting a chill. It’s funny. I’ve always loved this season but I feel like I forgot to notice things, how my world changes around me. The colours, the smells…Just everything. And then, I wanted you to see it. So I had to find it to show you. Show you how the leaves change colour and texture, how the mornings feel cooler and even the sound of the rain dancing over your rain cover while we are out walking. It’s like I get to see it all, for the first time again.
We visited a Pumpkin Patch too sweetheart. A first for us all. It was a beautiful day and the sun shone on us. I wore you around the muddy field, holding you close as your body fell heavy and you dozed off to sleep. You were content, peaceful. Noah pushed the wheelbarrow and Ellenah found our pumpkin friends. She chose you one too. It was fun and we smiled a lot. I sat with you on a hay bale while I drank tea from a polystyrene cup and ate a homemade marshmallow and rice crispy cake from a van when we were finished. Sun beams washed over us and I remember stroking your back, closing my eyes with my face slanted to the sky and feeling so happy.
It was Halloween this month too. I dressed you as a little pumpkin and took you trick or treating with Noah and Ellenah. Again, it was the first time that we had been. I didn’t used to understand why it was fun. Knocking on peoples doors, hoping for sweeties. I do now. I used to be a nervous Mama I think. A little shy perhaps. Wanting to keep my bubble a little smaller. Trying to organise and control the fun, maybe. But I’ve realised that I don’t want you, Noah and Ellenah to think small, limited or restricted. I want you to jump in and make every day great. So I am changing. You are changing me. All three of you are making me in to the kind of Mum that I dreamed that I could become one day. You deserve a Mummy who is confident, fun and free. Oh darling, we are going to have the most fun, you’ll see. I’m going to have to make life interesting really. You are into everything. Curious and a tiny bit nosey.
One thing in particular that captures you is food. You watch us all eat, you chew at our hands, fingers and your own and you make little bite and chewing motions while sitting with us at the dinner table. We let you hold a banana this month to see what you would do with it. I think you liked the idea of it. You spat out every bit but you did NOT want us to take it away either. I know one thing, you made a lot of mess but you knew exactly what to do with it. I suspect that weaning is going to be a lot of fun with you…but that is another chapter for another month. We are still breastfeeding right now and we both love it so much. All the while you will let me feed you on my own, i’m all yours. You will never know how much this breastfeeding journey has meant to me. What this bonding time has done for my heart and soul. I have loved and continue to love every minute. We have tried to introduce a bottle of expressed milk at bedtime lately because I am due to leave you for a few hours in the evening in November… I’m trying to prepare for leaving you properly for the first time. I won’t be close by. But… you absolutely hate it and just want to be with mama. I’ll let you in on a secret baby boy… I hate it too.
Just like every month, my little hair pulling beast… You have surprised me endlessly. My love for you has overwhelmed me and I think my heart grew again to make extra room for you, your brother and your sister. Just like every month, I feel so grateful, to have the three of you.
Seriously Dexi, this is us. Incredible, isn’t it?
I love you,
From, Mama x
p.s. I’ve made another video for you… So that I can remember you in the month that you were four months old x