Oh my baby girl. Watching you sleeping, fist curled tight around my finger, head snuggled into my chest - I just never want to let you go. It's your bedtime and I know I should put you into your cot. The dishes need washing, I've a million posts to write and so much work to do yet all I want to do is hold you. Watch you. I wish I could sit here with you cradled into me for eternity.
I want to forever feel the weight of your roly poly little pudding body, nestled into mine. I could stay here with you and listen to your soft, little breaths all night. In these moments, time stands still for us. The world whizzes past but right here, in this moment, we have forgotten what time is haven't we my darling? Right now, in this moment we can shut out the rest of the world and still be as one.
You are developing so quickly. New words, new milestones reached, one on top of the other - so much faster than I can record them. I remember them all though.
Your personality and strength are beginning to shine through each day.
It is of course a joy to watch you thrive, to watch you grow happily and healthily but how I wish I could slow down time and savour each and every second just that bit more. You are to be my last baby and how I wish you would stay new and tiny. Stay mine forever.
Watching your brother growing rapidly and changing into a young man, I am reminded every day that childhood disappears so fast. I wish I had held on to his more than I did. This time round with you, I'm capturing and storing snapshots in my mind of these moments, the tiny moments. The everything moments. I'm inhaling your soft, just-bathed scent and bottling it in my soul for those days when you are older, stroppier and more independent. I want to remember these milky, squishy moments.
When I look at you, my baby bear, although I love you overwhelmingly it is sometimes also fleetingly painful. It reminds me of my two babies who I will never hold. I wonder whether they would have been like you, looked like you, smelled like you. Would it have felt like this to hold their plumpy little bodies too? To nuzzle into their baldy little heads when they slept? I wonder what the world would have been like for them. I don't want you to live in their shadows my darling and you absolutely won't. You will be your own incredible person but tonight, right here I know I hold you just a bit tighter and for a bit longer in their memory.
You are so precious. Stay Mama's girl for a little bit longer, Sophie baby. Stay here with me for just a few more moments. My pudding. My baby bear. My bonus baby.
Don't be in a rush to grow up. Stay little. Stay mine.
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