Baby angst

Elliott is seven months old now, and is slowing turning into a little boy before our eyes. He sits easily without my help now, and although he still hates tummy time he will surprise me by rolling onto his tummy and eating the corners of his play mats if I leave the room for a few minutes. He is not interested in crawling, but laughs and smiles if we let him hold our hands and "walk" on our feet, or hold onto the couch to stand up. I have a feeling he wants to skip the crawling stage and go straight to walking! This is probably because most of the babies are quite a bit older than him at his baby play group, so he sees other babies doing amazing things like push a doll pram and he wants to try it too!

It's summer in Toronto right now, and I spend a lot of my day outside meeting new mum friends in the playground outside our building. This afternoon the playground was deserted except for three boys who were about 11 or 12 years old. I had a new ball for Elliott to play with, but once he saw the older boys running around with water guns he refused to play boring old ball games with me! He spent half an hour staring longingly at the water fight going on around him.

Eventually the boys realised Elliott wanted to join them, and they came over to play with him! Growing up I was surrounded by girl cousins, and the few boy cousins we had were usually dragged into our girly games. I'm not really sure what boys get up to when they're on their own and I was not sure what to expect from the big boys this afternoon. They were just lovely though. One said "Aww! He's so cute!" and asked me lots of questions about Elliott. Then they all joined Elliott on his blanket and started playing with him! It was quite rough play, but when Elliott looked over at me and saw me smiling his concerned face disappeared and he started giggling at the boys. It was so heartwarming!

I had to physically resist trying to grab Elliott back when the boys threw him in the air, tried to make Elliott walk, and let him fall on his back when he couldn't walk. I kept saying to myself "If he had lots of older cousins or siblings, this is what would happen all the time". Elliott's look of pure joy that the boys had finally noticed him let me know I had made the right choice to leave him to play. It also made me realise that Elliott puts his complete trust in everyone he meets, and I felt such an overwhelming need to protect that trust at all costs. I never want him to be hurt, and I certainly never want his little heart to be broken. (Or his little arms and legs, if I'm completely honest!) My love for this little boy grows exponentially every day ♥