Moses at three

I didn’t do myself any favours by writing this birthday post for Moses last year; I feel I’ve set the bar too high even for my normal self, let alone my hormonal, extremely tired, should-really-spend-my-limited-baby-free-time-eating-or-showering-rather-than-writing-blog-posts self. This year, from age two to age three, has been a year of laughs and frustration, tantrums and delight. And tantrums. Did I mention tantrums? It’s been a year that has taken the last of the baby out of my little boy.

Mo: You’re gorgeous, Mummy.

Mum: You’re gorgeous, my darling!

Mo: No, you’re gorgeous!

Mum: No, you’re gorgeous!

Dad: Am I gorgeous?

Mo: No.

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Mo’s still a star at sports, currently excelling at French cricket and basketball bouncing. He’s obsessed with diggers, tip trucks, bulldozers, motor graders, and anything else made by CAT. He could spend hours just looking at the search results for ‘cranes’ on Google images. He loves the book The Waterhole by Graeme Base, which we read every night at the moment, searching for new hidden animals. His favourite song is My Ukelele by Jay Laga’aia; we recently went through a phase of dancing to this song each night after dinner – Mo would pull out a box to use as a stage, and, facing the glass door (in which he could see his reflection), he’d dance his little uninhibited heart out. His My Ukelele dance is a combination of the haka, the hula, and the genes he inherited from his father. Over time he has become more experimental and now throws in a break dance move every now and then. Fortunately, he seems to enjoy it when I laugh while watching him.

I thought it was only frazzled mothers who muddled up names, but Moses does the same thing. On Mondays and Tuesdays he comes home from family day care and calls us Kerry (followed by, “Oops – silly me!”). Most other days of the week we’re Dum and Mad, or Dam and Mud; he does this so regularly now he’s stopped acknowledging he’s mixed up our names, and we’ve started responding to anything that seems to be directed at us.

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Mo: There was some snot, so I ate it.

Three weeks ago today, after months of talking and reading and preparation, Moses became a big brother. He only just made it back from a friend’s house in time to see Hazel being born, having been sent away after he chose a particularly intense contraction during which to whack me on the bottom and cry, “Tip!” Since then he has been a doting fan of his little sister’s, covering her face in slobbery kisses and pressing his cheek against hers and talking to her in a sing-song voice: “Hello, little gorgeous baby! I’m your big brother! You’re lovely! You’re my best friend!” 

So far he’s coped admirably with the changes that come with sharing parents/a house with a newborn. He’s a phlegmatic little dude who’s always adjusted quickly and easily to new things; I, on the other hand, have not yet learned to stress less about how quickly and easily he’ll adjust to new things.

Me: You have a good sleep, buddy.

Mo: I will. You have a good sleep, too.

Me: I hope I will, but Hazel wakes me up a lot.

Mo: If she wakes up, you just sing to her.

Me: Okay.

Mo: You sing, “Pla-liya, pla-liya, pla pla pla pla pla.” Like that.

Me: Okay. Thanks for the tip.

Mo: That’s alright.

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Now that Hazel’s here (and her sex has therefore been confirmed), I can say without worrying: 

This kid is my favourite little boy in the whole wide world.

Happy birthday, Mo. xo