Our son, the Devil's spawn

Our darling H

When H was born he had the sweetest little face. His first few weeks he barely made a sound, he was so beautiful, so peaceful. He fed like a champion, he slept like champion, we were so happy to have bred another perfect child. Then he hit four weeks, he found his voice, and we hoped there’d been a mix up at the hospital. My god that boy was hard, hard work. The paediatrician called it a combination of reflux and colic, which translates to “I don’t know why your baby screams”. Our little H would scream for hours and nothing, I mean nothing, would calm him. We tried a bath, a walk, a drive, a feed, a cuddle, a song, handing him over to someone else, but he just kept screaming. We had produced the devil incarnate.

Where is the OFF button?

We were building our house at the time and we moved in when he was 3 months old. He’ll be fine once we’re in the new home. I kept telling myself. He just needs his own room so I can settle him into a routine. And then it turned into He’s just adjusting after the move. He’s just unsettled because he’s teething. There was always an excuse.

He’s always been a terrible sleeper. When he was still in his cot, I would wake up on his bedroom floor because I’d been sitting there all night trying to get him to sleep. Now that he’s in a big bed he sneaks into our room and snuggles in... If I wake and find him there he instantly cups my face in his hands and says “I luz you mummy” because he’s a manipulative little shit darling. We often joke that if he was our first child he would have been our only child. He was also clingy, so clingy; if I tried to put him down or hand him to someone else he'd just cry.

Now he’s 2 ½ and we’re more certain than ever that he has an evil streak. He is the most charming, conniving little boy I’ve ever met. He still screams at the top of his lungs if things aren’t going his way. He is a “my way or the high way” kind of child and I have NO IDEA where he gets that from, not his control freak mum that’s for sure. One afternoon he asked for a chocolate cookie. I said no, he’d already eaten 2 and we were having dinner in half an hour. He whinged and demanded “Me want cookie!” like a little cookie monster. I issued a stern NO and hopped in the shower. When I walked out he had a cheeky grin on his face.

“Guess what?” he asked.

“What babe?”

“Me had choc-let cookie!” he taunted.

On a daily basis I listen to him mock and ridicule his big brother. He knows to get at J he just needs to take his glasses. We were at a wedding in August and J was concentrating on building a tower with the bonboniere. H kept sneaking up behind him and knocking it over, giggling. He is a dead set turd. But my gosh he’s a darling at the same time. Our own little Jekyll and Hyde. We just know we’re going to have to request that he only have male teachers in school, because he’ll undoubtedly charm the pants off any female who crosses his path. We're certain he’ll sneak out and get himself arrested at least twice before his 18^th birthday. He’ll be a heartbreaker, most definitely, until he finally meets a girl who can tame his wild ways.

But you know what? I don't mind. He is amazing, he's loving, he's intelligent, he is hilarious... he is H, and we love him immensely for the little devil that he is. And one day, when he's a dad, and he has a little shit of a child, and he comes to us for sympathy, we are going to laugh in his face. YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW H! Your reap what you sow.