Dear Jimmy: Today you are 9 months old

I don't usually do these sorts of posts, but this is my last week of maternity leave and I'm feeling a bit emotional about going back to work and leaving Jimmy with someone who isn't me.

Dear Jimmy,

Today you are nine months old. You have now been on the outside longer than you were on the inside (by four days!). This photo was taken a few hours before you were born. I was 38+3 days pregnant and complaining about how uncomfortable I was at the most pregnant I had ever been. I'd tried a lot to encourage you to arrive, but you had your own schedule in mind.

You are standing now, and trying to walk by pushing things around the house. Ellie walked the week before her first birthday - I predict you will do it sooner. You babble constantly, although you have yet to say any recognisable words.

You are sleeping better (by your standards) and you're pretty consistent with timings now: in bed by 7pm, awake for a nurse around 11pm and 2am. You wake up with a roar at 5am and refuse to go back to sleep even though 5am is cold and dark. As soon as daddy picks you up and puts you in bed with me, you crawl over and raspberry my face. It's extremely cute if I overlook the fact that I wake up covered in your slobber. You often try to eat my face. I tell myself this is you learning to kiss me.

Your big sister adores you, and I know you adore her too, because when she comes near you, your eyes follow her around the room. You are the perfect pair - she is my picky eating child, and you devour what she will not. She loves nothing better than to shower you with kisses (and yes, occasionally she sits on you, but you don't seem to mind that too much).

You have two teeth now; you still think you can eat anything and usually you do. Your favourite things to eat are pear, banana, broccoli, avocado and biscuits. You might well turn out to be my vegetarian child after all! Of course, you are still an absolute breastmilk monster, which completely thrills me after all our troubles to establish nursing. Since you refuse to take a bottle or a cup, I will be pumping at work and asking your carers to stir it into your food while I can't be there with you.

You are so smiley. You love anything that makes music. You can't stand to be too far away from me so I have become accustomed to cooking while you systematically pull everything out of the cupboard I have allocated to you. You are still happiest when you are touching me and I am happy to oblige by wearing you often. I don't know how I will cope while I am at work and no longer the absolute centre of your universe.

In the nine months you have been with me, I have forgotten that I am a separate person to you, just as you will soon have to learn that you are a separate person from me.

The past nine months have been some of the hardest, and most sleep deprived of my life. Although sometimes your daddy gets demonstrably cross when you won't go to sleep, we both love you anyway. Thank you for choosing me to be your mama.

All my love,
mama