Summer

Back at the end of October, after a brutal winter and a six week trip to Europe (and the time it took us to get over that jet lag) I took Daniel to the beach for the first time in months. And as I sat on the sand and marvelled at the sight of him running away from the waves, so free and so happy to finally be home in his element, it hit me – he was now so much bigger against this familiar setting.  Those funky board shorts from last summer still fit him perfectly but  his legs were so much longer and so much stronger. Were did my baby go ???

And then he pointed at something and his pose was exactly the same as when he was pointing at something when he was eight months old. A relief.

Summer arrived  and brought the usual smells of salt water and frangipani, the humid air, and that feeling that everything is as it should be. As the long, hot days came and went, Daniel caught his first wave on our old body board, ventured fearlessly into the water (“Mama! Let’s go further! Let’s go where it’s deeper!”), examined the world around him through the magnifying glass we bought in Canberra back in August, watered our lawn while pretending he was a steam train, worked on his bubble blowing technique, ate watermelon with abandon, and generally had lots and lots of fun. All while his legs kept getting longer and stronger.

And then I accidentally gave him a buzz cut.

There, right in front of me, stood a little person who was certainly not a toddler anymore. He looked more like a teenager than my sweet baby with messy hair, and my heart was beating out of my chest – the time does not stand still, the time marches on. And the proof of it was facing me straight on, with his cheeky smile and his huge eyes.

These photos are precious. When I look through my past summer blog posts (you can see them all HERE) my breath is taken away by how much Daniel is changing, by the beauty of our Central Coast home, and by how much I am grateful for it all.