10 months: my baby, my boy.

10 months!

Babies seem to grow in little regular spurts. Nothing will happen for a while and then suddenly, out of nowhere, they can do a million new things. Some are so tiny that only their mother (or a very observant father) can pick up on them and others completely transform their world.

At 10 months, Hugo is growing up so quickly. It is exciting and scary in equal parts. It's also a little sad. I know that he'll always be MY baby but he won't be A baby forever... so I'll try to hold on to the feeling a little bit longer.

At 10 months, I know Hugo is still a baby because...

... he can still snuggle so nicely in my arms, curled up like a little ball, his head resting on one of my forearms and his feet on the other.

... he still wakes up a couple times a night, for a feed, a pat or some reassurance. We're tired, maybe even a little sick of it, but I know that one day, I'll miss something about sitting in the dark, his warm body against mine as we both drift off to sleep.

... he is so pure, so innocent. His idea of heaven is to have both his parents at home. He is so easy to please, to surprise. He is not bored with a single thing in the world yet.

... he falls, topples, loses his balances, drops things, misses his mouth, smears cereal through his hair, pokes himself in the eyes... His body isn't completely his own yet. He still needs to tame it, learn its tricks, domesticate it.

... he is so tiny. He can sit under a chair, squeeze between the wall and the couch, stand under our dining table, slide his fingers under a door without pinching them, take his bath in a tiny laundry tub. In fact, he is so tiny that he can sleep on a plane!

But of course, I cannot hold on too tight, and it's with the same sense of awe and wonder that I observe Hugo's blossoming into the little boy he will soon become. Over the last few weeks, I have watched him transform into a devilishly cute and cheeky little creature, who laughs, jokes and plays games.

He has started clapping, dancing, putting food in our mouths and handing us objects. He stands without support and has taken a few accidental steps. He runs away crawling and laughing waiting for us to chase him. He sings "Dadadadadadadada" and "Mamamamamamama" all day long. He eats more but the associated mess and waste are getting less. He laughs when we tickle him, when he is surprised, when we play silly games. He laughs often and easily, and as parents, it's music to our ears.

New shades.

At the airport waiting to board our plane to Nice.

Meeting Hugo's second cousin, Alice sitting in front of our ancestral namesake.

Grandparents left,...

right,...

and center.

Bunny ears.

Last day before heading home.

Night 6 of jet-lag: feeling tired. 

A dark hour.

Selfie taken at what was probably the high point of the night,,,

The downside of trying to be a gentle parent is that there isn't much left to fall back onto when that fails.  Actually, there is but it comes with a hefty dose of guilt attached.

The jet-lag we, and especially Hugo, are experiencing has been testing to put it mildly. In simple terms, we have barely slept since we got home, now almost a week ago.

The nights start well enough but quickly turn sour when Hugo wakes up at 11, 12 or 1am and can not be put back to sleep no matter what we try.

We have patiently sat with him until he seems sleepy again, patted him, fed him, rocked him and ultimately stuck him in his cot, shut the door and waited... waited... waited... all of it to a soundtrack of furious wailing.

Last night, we reached our limit. Hugo woke as soon as we tried to get to bed, was awake despite our best efforts until 2:30am, only to wake up again one short hour later. Chris went in quickly to try and pat him back to sleep. More screaming. I tried to feed him. Slapping, kicking, screaming. Eventually, feeling defeated and deflated, I put him in his cot, left the room and went back to bed. It was almost 5am.

I even closed the doors so we wouldn't hear him as loudly. My plan was very simply to fall asleep while he sorted himself out. Of course, I couldn't fall back asleep, my whole body was tense and my ears were pricked up, but he did sort himself out. Slowly, and eventually, no more noise. He then slept until 7:30am.

I didn't enjoy it but I just didn't have the strength, mental or physical for anything else. As I was listening to his screams in the dark, I knew that had I stayed in the room, I would have screamed back. I was on the edge, I was in what felt like one of our darkest parenting hours.

Please jet-lag, leave us alone.

Here and there, home is everywhere.

On Sunday, fresh off the plane and completely jet-lagged, we went to the beach closest to our flat. We held Hugo in the cold water, played in the sand, splashed around in the shallow rock-pools.

The weather was perfect, the scene was perfect, so I said, "Aren't we lucky to be able to come home to this?" to which Chris replied, "We're not lucky, we chose to live here."

He's right, we not only chose to move to Newcastle, we made the life-changing decision to uproot ourselves, leave friends and family behind, a professional network we had become a part of, and a cultural landscape we enjoyed, in order to move to a city we had never even visited on the off-chance that we might like it.

As it turns out, we more than like, we love it. This is the right place for us at this moment in our lives, as a young family. The pull to come 'Home' to Newcastle did take me a little by surprise as we were packing our bags in Nice last week. I'm not sure I ever felt this way about Sydney even-though we were there for much longer.

Maybe Newcastle feels the most like home these days because it is the only home Hugo has ever known and around him, we have made our nest.