An ode to clingy babies

I’m writing this sat on my bed, with my 20 month old toddler asleep on me. While he might not technically be a baby any longer {though he’ll always my baby} somethings don’t change.

It’s safe to say, he’s the clingiest out of all my five. Or maybe it’s just that I notice it more as there isn’t another adult to share with. It’s just me and him. I am his everything. For as much as he loves his siblings, and their Dad, at the end of the day it’s me he turns to for all his needs.

There are days when it is too much. When I am all touched out. When I long to stretch out in bed, rather than sleep curled in a ball, his head on my arm, his legs entwined with mine, more often than not a boob in his mouth. Days when I just want to sit and work without trying to navigate typing around his little head asleep on my lap.

Then I look at him. His deep, trusting eyes. Hear his little ‘thankyou Mama’ when I cuddle him, or feed him, or carry him, and the hard bits melt away.

He’s growing before my eyes. That tiny baby already vanished and replaced with a rambunctious toddler. I look at his siblings, the eldest who is almost 18 already, and wonder when they grew up.

So while it may be tricky. There are days I yearn for a little space. A little time to be me. A full nights sleep, or even just a nap time to tackle my never ending to-do list. I know that this period is fleeting. When it is gone, I will miss it.

You never know when it will be the last feed. The last carry. The last nap on you. One day you look around and realise your baby grew up while you were busy.

So I’m going to soak up every moment, enjoy the disturbed sleep, the enforced spooning, the constant requests for ‘boobie peas Mama’, the hands always in my hair, the need for me.