Birthday Boy

I was reading our local free Parish newsletter today, when I noticed an article written for children, which ended with the words “and remember, there are two VIPs on the way, Baby Jesus and Santa Claus!”.

“They have got to be joking” I muttered to myself, and looked at the Very Small Boy, who was daintily dipping fingers of toast into his bowl of soup and then flinging them on the floor.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a whole year since our own little VIP was born, at 2.24 pm on a frosty November afternoon in Dublin. So different from the tiny, delicate Small Girl at birth, he was all plump rolls of fat; he didn’t even seem like a newborn, his sturdy little body was so solid.

“But he’s so chubby!”, was all I could say when I first set eyes on him.
"We’ve got a son!” said DH quietly to no-one in particular, looking vaguely stunned.
“Yes… and look how chubby he is!”

The irony is that the Very Small Boy (who weighed over 9lbs at birth and has always been pleasingly stout) was never really very small at all.

Now, aged one, he’s a robust and very masculine little bundle of energy; dashing about the house, bashing things against other things, throwing his food on the floor and making gratuitous use of his one and only word: “hot”. Yes, our patient wait for his first word has been rewarded with this fascinating insight into what goes on in his little mind: he appears to think that absolutely everything is hot.

In a birthday celebration which seemed over the top for someone too small to know what was going on or remember it in the future, we had a family party for the Very Small Boy’s very first birthday. After the Small Girl had helped him open his presents, she sat happily playing with his new cars and trucks and hammers as he tore their wrappings to pieces, and I realised that we had actually gone to so much trouble for her. Because now, she is old enough to remember and one day, she can tell him all about it. And because she can’t remember her own first birthday, but she now understands that we did all this for her too, regardless.

After a heartfelt rendition of “Happy Birthday”, we presented a puzzled-looking Very Small Boy with his very first taste of chocolate cake. Looking delighted, he pointed at it, shouted “hot!” then crammed it into his mouth, saving a fistful of crumbs to delicately cast over the floor about his high-chair.