A year ago exactly you were placed in my arms. You were blanched white with wrinkled star fish hands. You looked stunned like a fish flipped from the water and onto my chest. You didn’t cry but just regarded me through eyes as dark as galaxies. And I stared back.

I’d be prepared not to feel anything at first. Mum friends had warned me it can take a while to feel a connection. Or I’d hoped I’d have a strong feeling that you were mine. Instead I just looked at you looking at me as if you were trying to memorise my face and thought ‘Oh it’s you.’ Like you were somebody I had known a long time ago and always longed to see again. You weren’t mine anymore than the stars and the moon were mine. From the beginning you were a hundred per cent yourself.

How to describe you? Most babies seem to take a while to come into focus; their fourth trimester happening outside the womb. But from the beginning you clearly communicated what you did and didn’t want. I have to be quick to keep up with you. You’ve always been mercurial smiling and babbling one minute then throwing yourself to the floor as if your heart is breaking the next. As an introvert it’s fascinating to see how much you love being around other people. At Christmas you herded the family from room to room like a tiny sheepdog. You talk constantly, even in your sleep.

I see pieces of both families in you. You have your daddies love of puzzles and cautious methodical approach of wanting to take the world apart to see how it works. But you feel things deeply and intensely like me, and love books.

During that endless first night as a mother, where I didn’t dare sleep in case you disappeared like fairies gold in the sunlight, I said to the midwife ‘I don’t know what I am doing’

I still don’t. But I have faith that we will figure it out together. 

So here’s to one year of you. To one year of cuddles and over excited clawing at my face. To one year of night feeds, kissing your warm downy head. To one year of navigating the brave new world of Mum’s groups, baby sensory and soft play.  To one year of watching you learn how to lift your head, roll, sit up, crawl and stand. To one year of soaking up the moments because you are growing so fast.

Here’s one year of you my Nibsie of the Noos. I love you more than words can ever say. Never stop being you.