To my dear Sebastian Jaya,
One week ago, you turned TWO my little man! A whole two years old! I honestly don’t know where the time has gone…but it has just slipped us by so fast. I’ve spent the last week remembering my early pregnancy days with you {how tired and sick I was} and your whole birth story playing over in my mind {how you were so impatient to arrive into our lives that you arrived one month early!} and how at the start everything felt so difficult. I’ve been reminiscing about those early days and our first summer together {how you were pretty much attached to me feeding over what felt like the longest, hottest summer of all time!} – and I have taken in every minute of it and I cherish all of it.
It has been such a blessing to have you in our lives Sebastian, and I have loved watching you grow and learn over the last two years. And although I’ve been sitting back watching you learn so many new things, I’ve also been learning so much along this journey too. So many lessons for me to learn. Over the last couple of weeks leading up to your birthday, you have definitely had a growth spurt; you’ve shot up a couple of centimetres meaning you can now reach more things on the kitchen bench and you can almost reach door handles, and you are saying lots of new words too.
I can certainly tell you that you were totally spoilt for your second birthday! We celebrated this birthday with your Gran and Pop Newnham a couple of days early with a special little party with sausage rolls, party pies, fairy bread, popcorn, lollies and a chocolate cake. And of course, presents galore because Gran loves to spoil her one and only grandson. So many laughs and lovely memories made with your Gran and Pop-Pop.
On your actual birthday, Dadda took the day off work so that the three of us could spend the day together. We started the day with the “Happy Birthday” song and you gave us the strangest side-way glances, looking at us so suspiciously! And then, presents! Lots of presents! And lots of balloons!
After opening all your presents and having a play of course, we had some breakfast and the three of us headed to the Melbourne Zoo, your first trip to the zoo!
First off you were given a fright by a cheeky monkey {of all things!} … you were right up close to the glass looking through, when I suddenly spotted a monkey down below the bottom of the glass window, and then it suddenly jumped up towards the glass and gave you the biggest fright of your life. Poor little man, you jumped straight into Dadda’s arms for safety. Cheeky monkey! 😉
We then headed to the Butterfly House to see the butterflies, which you loved. Then on to the Elephant Trail to see the elephants {of course!} and the orang-utans. You played ‘Peek-a-boo’ with one of the elephants; he was trying to hide behind a wooden gate and kept poking his head out to see you! And then he would poke his head back and try to hide behind the gate again. Very cute. You thought it was funny.
We wandered around, you were happy to see so many ducks and birds, and then onto the seals, penguins, and the lions. We stopped at one of the all time favs; the giraffes and you enjoyed watching them. We had lunch at the Giraffe Lookout Cafe – such an awesome spot to sit and have lunch while watching the giraffes and zebras roam around.
We headed home mid-afternoon as you were getting tired {and so were we!}. We put you down for a late afternoon nap and you were so tired out that you slept through the rest of the afternoon having a four hour nap. We ended up waking you up at 8pm – you had a little play and we did birthday rainbow cake {which you refused to eat btw!}, you hung out with Dadda on the couch; having stories read to you while you ate popcorn! We then did our bath and bed routine at 9.30pm – routine totally out of whack. Such a very long birthday day!
The celebrations didn’t end there, on the Sunday after your birthday, we had a small gathering of friends and family around, we had planned a party at the St.Kilda Botanical Gardens however the weather wasn’t on our side, it was cold and grey and drizzling rain so we moved the party to our place. So there were more presents and more cake! And more memories made.
Out of all the many lovely gifts you received, your absolute favourite, the one you continue to go back to time and time again, is the big wooden yellow school bus that you got from your Gran and Pop. You LOVE it.
A few days after your birthday, on the Tuesday 24th October, we had your two year appointment with the Child and Maternal Health Nurse; it all went well. You have grown 5 centimetres since our last appointment at 18 months old. So, at two years old you are now 90 cm tall! You’ve also put on weight, although not as much as perhaps expected but still within the 50 percentile {I think possibly a combination of you being particularly fussy at the moment and not eating nearly as much as you used to eat and also the fact that you exert so much energy and you have shot up and got taller too!}, so at two years old you are 12485 grams. We also discussed Kindergarten – say what?! I’m so not ready to even think about you going off to Kindergarten but apparently I need to be putting your name down at several different Kindergartens in the area now, in the hope that we will get a spot in two years when it’s time for you to go off to Kindergarten. It all feels so premature to me, you’ve just turned two years old and we’re discussing your schooling already! *I’ll just push all that to the side for a little while…I just want to enjoy the moments now and not think too far ahead.
Let me tell you about the mischief that you’ve been getting up to lately Sebastian – these are the memories that I never want to forget – your cheeky antics that always make me laugh.
Whilst at a recent trip to the supermarket, I gave you two packets of mentos to hold onto {just to occupy you while I did a race around the supermarket to pick up a few things}, after a while I thought to myself; Sebastian is very quiet and content sitting in the pram {like way too quiet!} – you had the hood down so I couldn’t see you. Suddenly, when I had a look under the hood to see what you were up to, I realised that you were eating the mentos! Of course, that’s why you were so quiet, you had your mouth full of mentos! I had to laugh at that one. You’re a smart kid!
A couple of weeks ago I walked into the lounge room to find you under the coffee table with an egg in your hands! Oh my…the panic that took over me! I’m still not quite sure how I managed to prize that egg out of your hands without breaking it and having egg yolk sprawled all over the carpet.
You still love playing ‘Hide and Seek’ – you think it’s hilarious! You love to sing and dance, and your enthusiastic dancing has turned into crazy jumping. You sing along to animated songs on the iPad – it’s very cute! You also still love your books – you love trying to read them yourself and chatter away to yourself and you love us reading them to you, over and over again!
But the thing you love most of all…is getting outside and running around like crazy! Your little legs going so fast! Oh so fast, little man. Always exploring, at our local park you will always wander off the pathway and go through the gardens, touching all the different plants, flowers and leaves as you go on your way. You love going to the St.Kilda Botanical Gardens, and I hope we can make more time to go there more often over the summer months.
So, now that your second birthday has come and gone, I feel that we are heading into the end stretch of the year…soon summer will be here and Christmas will be upon us and then the new year. Time really does go by so quickly…the seasons forever changing and time moving on. And it’s kind of bittersweet and makes my heart ache a little {okay, a lot!}.
Once again my little sweetheart…thank you for coming into our lives, I don’t know what we’d do without you. You make every day a joy, filled with laughter, fun and so much love. And when you come up to me and give me a hug, my heart just melts. I love you little man, I love your little face and I love your cheeky teethy grin and I love everything that is YOU Sebastian.
Happy second birthday my little Sebby – I can’t wait for the next year of adventures with you.
Love always,
Your Mama xxx
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