While no one was watching

Dear Bugz,

‘Was she always this cute’, your A Maama asked. While your Didi is awake she takes all the attention. She talks, she runs, she laughs and she makes everyone around her laugh. You are forgotten in all the noise. I am not saying you don’t have your way of being heard. Your cry can be heard at least 3 houses down. But as you sleep your day away, you don’t get much attention. Then you open your eyes just as your Didi sleeps and you start to talk and you start to play. Your hands pump and your legs don’t stop moving. Suddenly people notice you and are surprised at how utterly adorable you are.

I know every mom says this but I think you have the most beautiful smile. It lights up your entire face. This in turn makes everyone who sees it smile. But what makes us all laugh is that you flash it even in the middle of a crying session. It is as if you can’t control yourself and just have to smile when you see someone smile at you. And then when you think something is really funny you chuckle. A real from your belly chuckle and that just cracks us all up.

If you are well fed and your diaper is changed you can play on your mat and in your bouncer for over an hour. All we need to do is pick you up every 15 or so minutes and keep you upright for a few minutes so that your acid reflux does not act up. But no matter how happy you are playing by yourself, you get so excited when you see one of you coming close to you. You start kicking your legs super-fast and give your best smile. After all nothing beats being picked up and held close.

As much as I have been a mom before and as much as everyone including me thinks – been there, done that, there are so many things I had forgotten about having a baby. In all the diaper changes that came as your Didi grew up, I forgot all about the sweet baby smell. Your Didi developed a bad case of dry skin when she was 2 months old and taking care of it for months and months made me forget how soft baby skin is. This time I want to remember all this and not forget. I hold you close, I bury my nose in your neck and inhale big. I kiss your cute little cheek, somehow always your left one which makes me worry that your right one will get upset at the discrimination and then I try my best to even it out. I can’t have either of the two angry at me, now can I?

Everyone looks at you and tell me that you look just like me. And I go awww, I must have been one seriously cute baby. Oh sorry! This is about you. I watch you day in, day out and still as I watch you sleep it hits me how much you have changed from the day I brought you home. You have grown so much.

Buzz is my first baby. The first one I felt move inside me. The first one I held in my arms. The first baby weight I felt. The first one I loved. But you are my last. I will never carry another one or feel another kick or hiccup inside (cross my fingers here that we have no accident, oh please God not that). And that makes you as special as the first one. Love you like crazy sweetheart, through endless sleepless nights and never-ending diaper changes. With that love in my heart all I can wish for you is – stay healthy, stay happy, stay you.

Loads of love,
-Maa