Ooooooh, We're Halfway There...

I'm really struggling right now to avoid finishing off the Bon Jovi reference. It's like in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when every cartoon character can't help but finish "Shave and a haircut: two bits!": I'm desperately trying not to whip my hair around and go, "Whooooooooooaa! Livin' on a prayer!" The text version will have to do.

But we are now officially halfway there: halfway to one year, that is! My gorgeous little boy is six months old. How have I had this tiny person for half a year? What surprises me is his personality. When people ask you - ad nauseum, really - "You just can't remember life without him, can you?" this is really what I think of. Because, yes: I totally do remember life before Ethan. I remember sleeping the whole night through, going to the gym in the middle of the afternoon, working at Jane Austen's House, walking back to my flat in Penfold Street through Hyde Park of an afternoon...I haven't forgotten these things. What is difficult for me to imagine is Ethan being anyone other than who he is. He laughs at my stupid faces, he giggles like a maniac when we dance in the living room, he's always happy to see me, he hates parsnips and always makes my wrinkled-nose-of-skepticism face upon eating the first bite of hot baby food. He is, always and forever, my first baby. Now that he's here, while I can imagine what I'd be doing with my life if we'd waited to have kids, in my mind - no matter the circumstance - the first child I always imagine will be Ethan...just as he is.

What I can't imagine is not enjoying our time together as mother and son. Around 8 in the morning, Sebastian will bring him back into the room to take his first nap with me. We'll cuddle up in the duvet and Ethan will rest his tiny fat hand on my collarbone while he feeds himself to sleep. Then, we snuggle down under the covers and I turn over to rest with him lying in the crook of my arm. Those little lips that are so much like mine pout in his sleep, which is hilariously cute for some reason, and he curls up towards me on his side, nestling into me like he needs to make sure I'm still there in order to sleep peacefully. When he wakes back up again around 10, we sing a few songs in bed and lounge around for a bit. At some point, Ethan will reach over with both chubby little hands to hold me face and smile at me. My face then becomes a chew-toy for a few minutes after I ask, "Where are my kisses?" Yeah, it's all wet and slimy, and occasionally there's some tongue involved (I've told him repeatedly that we don't kiss that way in this family!), but that's just what his kisses are at this age. And really, of all our time together throughout the day, those hours in bed in the mornings are my favourite.

So here's to the first six months: to the tiny baby burrito I brought home from the hospital becoming a devastatingly adorable little boy. And to all the months to come.