Letter To An 8 Month Old – Dear Aviya

My dearest Squidgeling,

You are eight months old and a continued source of awesomeness and joy.

When your sister was a baby I used to think she filled my quota of awe, amazement and wonderment. I worried that when you came along, it would all be old news. It turns out, however, that you are so different, and have such different personalities, even now, that you show me entirely new sides that I’ve never seen before. You remind me of some previous amazements that I’d forgotten, and you take me to new places of thrill and excitement every day. You’re hitting milestones, new ones every other day. You crawl like a trooper now, and find your way across the house in record time. I can’t leave you in precarious places now, because you’ll fall off. I can’t assume you’ll be where I left you, and I have to watch where I step if I step backwards.

You love to pull yourself up on things, and your favourite thing ever is a mirror. If you can catch your reflection in something – an oven door, a window, a teaspoon, – you’ll smile from ear to ear and be occupied for minutes at  a time. The other day you were crying, then caught your reflection in the oven door and started giggling at yourself. Superbly cute.

We’re in Australia now, for your first international trip. You were amazing on the 21 hour trip here. You slept for a lot of it, and were happily entertained for the rest. You nursed most of the way – thank God for breastfeeding – and were a content and sweet child, as is your nature. The air hostesses loved your smiley face.

Since we’ve been here, you’ve been lovely too. It took a while for you to adjust to the time difference and for the first week you were  pretty grumpy, but you came round and returned to your cheerful self. You’re such a positive thing, it’s lovely to call you mine.

You’ve started showing a proper interest in food in the last two or so weeks. I’ve kind of just let you have what we have, but for the most part you’ve been loving kiwi fruit, mango and banana.

You are also really resilient. Ameli is very rough with you, despite my efforts. She sits on you, jumps on you and is generally over the top. Most of the time she does these things because they make you laugh. Other times they make you cry, then her and I ‘fight’. I look forward to you being big enough to stand up for yourself. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. I know Aunty Desh and I used to fight like cats and dogs and quite frankly, I hope you and Ameli aren’t like that.

I think you’re going to be a sleep talker – which quite frankly means I’m getting my own room and letting you and Daddy and Ameli share a room! Between his snoring, and you and her talking, I’ll never get a good nights sleep again!

Well, my Squidgeling, we’re heading over to Nana’s house in a few minutes. She’s decided not to continue her chemotherapy, and now we just wait. I’m so sorry that she won’t see you grow and that you’ll never get to know her. I guess the best I can do is tell you about her and hope we’ll see her again one day.

Much love to you, gorgeous, happy, joyous child. Thank you for being the light you are in this really sad time.

Mama