My Forever Baby

The baby in our house will be two years old tomorrow and for the first time since we started our family, there is a birthday in the house being celebrated by the youngest and there isn’t (a) a baby on the way or (b) an infant in the family.

It is a strange feeling.  It is a great feeling.  But enough about me.  This post is about our little Bread Bin. 

We don’t call him Bread Bin.  Really we don’t.  When Brendan was born, Lovely Liam, in true mumbling two and a half year old fashion, made “Brendan” sound like Bread Bin.

These days Smallest Boy answers to Chick, Mucky Pup or Fuzzy Head.

Brendan is what you might call a laid back dude.  Always has been.  He wakes up with a smile and goes to bed, mostly, with a smile.  Even when he is upset, it is over and done with very quickly.

As a small baby he loved his sleeps.  Once he slept for 16 hours straight and even the occasional rub of his head wasn’t enough to wake him fully. 

He loves to give “stingers” which are high fives in our house.  He likes to torment his Daddy by kissing me and laughing at his daddy’s mock outrage.  I cannot cross my legs as the child boards them and does his best jockey impersonation.

He is an outdoor child and doesn’t seem to feel the cold.  Something he has in common with his big brothers.   Brendan loves the swimming pool and will fling himself into the water and my open arms but only when he has everyone’s attention.

He is a big fan of those brightly coloured snacks from a well-known baby food manufacturer.  And when he is finished a bag, it is difficult to tell where the child begins and the snack ends. 

His hair is a mad just-out-of-the-bed array of frizziness.  If he stands in the sunlight, it looks like his hair is on fire. 

Brendan is a flirt and thinks nothing of going up to the next table in a café to say hello to the occupants.  He has recently developed a passion for tractors, lorries and motor bikes.  He is in seventh heaven when the front square in town is occupied by maybe a dozen bikes as their owners are in having breakfast.

I think it is very fair to say that Smallest Boy is the most affectionate child in the house.  He loves an “ugg” and a “keeze” at bedtime and is partial to both at any given time of the day.

When he wants a drink of water he will make a sucking noise through his teeth and tap whichever body part of mine he can reach.   He has stood there patiently tapping away until he has my attention, which some days, believe me, can be a long time.  If he wants a drink of milk, however, it has to be from daddy’s “cup cup.”

He is trying hard to speak at the moment and has loads of unintelligible words but if he can’t get his point across, he thinks nothing of letting lose a blood curdling scream until he gets what he is after.

He is mad about Shy Boy’s school friend and loves to stand on the counter top to point him out in a class photograph.

He will spend ages looking at pictures on my phone, in particular those of his bosom buddy, Juno.

And as can be typical of a child with older siblings, age appropriate toys are of no interest whatsoever to Brendan.  He loves to play Lego and build towers out of wooden blocks.  It is his habit to lift tea spoons out of the kitchen drawer and use them to dig in the garden.

The title of this post is something of a misnomer as of course, Brendan is not going to be a baby forever.  Even at two years of age, I am doing him a disservice with this tag.  Looking at him as I was writing this post, I see how tall he is already. 

He already has two older brothers who are quite tall for their age.  His daddy is no slouch either.  It looks like Brendan might be following in their stead.

Imagine that.  Little old me surrounded by fine strapping boys.  I must have done something really really cool in a previous life.

Happy Birthday, Smallest Boy.   I am truly sorry that the day before your second birthday, you needed to visit the doctor for a cartoon type bandage and your very first anti-biotic due to a fight with the front door.  I promise it will be made up to you tomorrow.

You’re a little trooper!