Letter to Sebastian Jaya – 16 months old

To my dear little Sebastian,

I can’t believe that over 3 months have passed by since I last sat down to write a letter to you. How does three months slip by so easily and so quickly without even noticing?

It’s been Summer vibes around here and I haven’t spent a lot of time on the laptop at all, which has been really nice to have a bit of a break. But now that you have hit 16 months old this week {Edit: over two weeks ago now as it has taken me a couple of weeks to write this letter, see how life has slowed right down!}, I thought it was definitely time to sit down and write to you, my little love.

Christmas, Dada’s birthday and the New Year have all well and truly passed us by. Unfortunately, you fell ill with a virus on Christmas Eve and the bug lasted a good 2 weeks if not more. You were so miserable, poor little man. Then I got the virus and I felt miserable, and it was all such bad timing as Dada had taken a couple of weeks off work to spend time with us over Christmas and the New Year period and we both fell sick. All of our holiday plans went out the window and we spent a lot of time just being at home, which was nice too and obviously gave us a well-needed rest after a HUGE first year for us as a family.

I really don’t know where to start with what’s been happening over the last few months. But I can tell you that you have grown SO. MUCH. It’s crazy! It really is! Your fair hair is getting so long and curly and always seems to end up with food in it. *I’ve worked out that mushy banana works great as hair gel! 😉 So many days when you wake up with crazy bed hair. I love it! I hate to tell you Seb, but with parents who both have crazy hair, you are definitely going to have crazy hair my love, and it’s just going to get crazier as time goes on. Embrace it and just go with it! 😉

But those soft golden curls are just divine.

You’ve definitely grown taller too. And bigger. I’ve had a big clean-up of all your past baby clothes, so many that just don’t fit you now, and I’ve packed up quite a few bags to donate to charity. I’ve also kept some favourites that I just can’t part with…I possibly never will. I looked at some of those clothes and wondered how on earth you fit into them. Some were sooo tiny!

The BIGGEST news is that you are finally walking little man and you are so chuffed with yourself. You’ve been cruising around for months and months now but just in the last month you have started walking all on your own. So very proud of you Sebastian. And oh boy, have there already been many big tumbles and stumbles but you get straight back up again and try again. Don’t ever lose the ability to do that Sebastian, we need to be able to do that in life, when we stumble just get back up and try again.

Since walking, you’ve also discovered a new found pastime of ‘climbing’! You love to climb up onto the couch and drop things down the back of the couch, you think it’s the greatest game ever! You think it’s hilarious and your giggles are so infectious, little man. I love your cheeky games and seeing your face light up with mischief. And it’s all fun and games until the other night after we’d put you to bed, we couldn’t find the TV/PVR remote control! Ahhh we looked everywhere for it…we eventually found it down the back of the couch where you had hidden it. You’ve also been climbing up onto the coffee table! Arghhh! Not such a good idea little man, especially when our coffee table has a glass top!

You’ve got four more teeth that have just made their way through! Yep you don’t cut those teefies in halves or anything! We’ve had some crazy sleepless nights whilst you were teething but mostly you sleep through the night. You really are a good little sleeper {MOST of the time!}. Thank goodness for that. I don’t know what we would’ve done if you weren’t a good sleeper but luckily for us, you are a good little sleeper, and so I managed to get a decent amount of sleep each night. We’ve also been transitioning to one nap a day. {Oh sooo sad to say goodbye to one nap time! I’m sad. Not you!} I think you are ready, all the battles to get you to sleep and all your clever strategies to avoid sleep. OMG! So for now, I’m in the process of changing up our daily routine to allow for one long nap in the middle of the day rather than two naps. So far it seems to be going well, as at night you’ve been sleeping by the textbook i.e. 7pm to 7am or there abouts {of course, there are a few early morning starts thrown in there occasionally!}.

We’ve been going for long walks down the beach in the mornings {before it gets too hot}, it’s been really good for both of us. The views around the bay are so pretty and it makes me realise how very grateful I am that we live where we do, with the beach just on our doorstep. And when we get home after our walk then you go down for a nap, which is usually around 2 hours but it can last from 1.5 hours up to 2.5 hours {YAY! Definitely winning on those days!}. A good, long solid nap and it’s working brilliantly. You are actually almost running down to your room for nap time now, rather than the previous little man who liked to kick and scream and battle so hard against day naps. You have a little milk and then you pretty much go straight to sleep. Yay to long beach walks and long day naps!

Your new word is “nana” {banana} so it’s not surprising that you LOVE eating bananas! While we’re on the topic of food, you love your food and there are still so many foods for you to try. You are very definite about what foods you like {mostly LOVE} and the foods that you dislike. Your facial expressions say it all and also when you start to throw food around the place, it’s a sure sign you don’t want to eat it. Over summer I’ve been making frozen mango and coconut yoghurt and you LOVE it! Such a cool {and healthy} treat for you. You also love a mixed fruit smoothie and it’s so easy for me to pop some fruit and yoghurt into the blender and whiz up smoothies for us on a hot afternoon. Oh, but you do hate the sound of the blender, you cry every single time I turn it on. It’s funny how you cry when you hear a loud noise but you love to make loud noises yourself!

Let me tell you about some of the things that you like to do these days… you now like to walk with your eyes closed, you have this cheeky smile on your face when you do it like it’s the funniest thing in the world. It is very funny, although you have bumped into furniture a few times, which isn’t so funny. You also like to walk around in circles and make yourself dizzy! You’re learning to put the big lego blocks together and some days we can spend ages building towers and of course you love to knock all the towers over. Bath is still an all time fav, although you rarely sit down and just enjoy the bath, you’re too busy walking around and throwing all of the toys out of the bath. Your blue duckie is still your fav of all your bath toys. Oh, while we’re talking about the bath… YOU LOVE to throw things in the bathtub and by the end of the day we end up with a great collection of things in the bath.

Your ‘dummy’ {pacifier} is still an all time fav too! There’s always one not too far away. Sometimes one is not enough. You can be quite often seen with two dummies on the go; one in your mouth and one in your hand and you like to swap them over and give them both a go. Sometimes they even end up in the bath with you!
You also like to stock pile them between your cot and the wall, half-hidden under the mattress. My goodness little man, we will have to deal with the dummy situation in good time but for now I know they comfort you, so why not. It’s a big scary world out there so we all need a little comfort to get us through sometimes. All in good time my little one.

Summer has sadly come to an end but the start of Autumn has been perfect! We’ve had hot sunny days with the most perfect of blue skies and cool breezes in the evenings with the most prettiest of sunsets over the bay to end each passing day. And as one season must come to an end, so must a new season begin. I’m looking forward to spending the next season with you my love; watching you and learning from you as you guide me through this crazy maze of mama-hood!

Love you so much Sebastian. I don’t know if you’ll ever know how much I really do love you. You are my light, my sunshine, my everything, little man.

Love, Mama xxx