"Carry you!"

Caleb has just gone down for his nap so I thought  would take the opportunity to blog about the cuteness of our morning while it is still fresh in my mind!

It is a gorgeous sunny day today and really warm, so Caleb and I walked into town (I walked, he was in his buggy). It's about a 4.5 mile round trip and when we probably do this walk a couple of times a week. On the way, Caleb is in his buggy and on the way back, he usually walks most of it. We did a few things while we were in town, which included buying him some sunglasses. He is so thrilled with them!

While we were there, I started to not feel that great so decided to head back. It would probably have been easier to keep Caleb in the buggy and just walk home but he knows the routine and obviously wanted to walk! So he did, I put his reins on him and he walked for around 100m. Then he decided that he didn't want to walk anymore. He stopped, turned to me with his little arms outstretched and said, "carry you!" I tried to persuade him to go in the buggy again, but no, he wanted to be carried. Part of me was quite happy because I enjoy carrying him when he asks me to, he's so independent and doesn't really seem to need me that much so I like it when it happens! But the other part of me thought that it is such a warm day, I don't feel great and I don't really want to have to carry him all that way.

The nicer part of me won on this occasion and I'm so glad it did because we had such a lovely time! He kept taking both of our sunglasses off, tapping them against each other and saying "cheers!" like they were drinks. He also wanted to see my eyes so he would pull off my glasses and point at / poke me in the eyes which he thought was hilarious. On a few occasions on the way home I asked him if he wanted to walk and would try to put him down but he would grip on with his legs and say "carry you!". Then I would rearrange him into a position that was comfortable for me to carry him in and he would rearrange himself into a position on my hip that was more comfortable for him! We chatted away and sang songs ("Royals" and "All of Me" in case you were wondering - they're two of his favourites) and I kept telling him that he should carry me, which he thought was pretty funny. During the walk, he took our sunglasses off again and swapped them so that we were wearing each others, then kept saying, "cool!" as he was looking at me / his reflection in the glasses I was wearing. That boy makes me laugh so much.

Finally as we were walking through an outdoor shopping area to get home, Caleb decided he would walk for a bit and push the buggy as well. I was holding his reins and at one point, he tripped and fell. I tried to stop him falling by pulling on the reins but probably made it worse because he then kind of swung into the side of the buggy and hit his head on the metal frame. Cue lots of tears! He doesn't usually cry when he hurts himself, he just jumps up and carries on so when he's properly crying I know that he is actually hurt. I knelt down to hug him and he wrapped his little arms around me and lay his head on my shoulder. At first, I thought I was the one who was rocking us back and forth and then I realised it was actually him! He finally let go (I never let go of him first when we cuddle, I like to make the most of it! Plus, my sister once told me of a quote that said, "when a child hugs you, never be the first one to let go; you never know how much they need it". I kind of live by that now!) only to go to the changing bag, pull out his muslin (his comforter of choice), come back to me as I was still kneeling on the pavement and continue to cuddle me, even though he had stopped crying at this point. My heart may have melted a bit.

We both carried on walking and when we walked past a bench, he pulled me by the hand towards it and said, "cuddle!". So we sat on the bench, he laid against me and we sang "Annie's song" (one of his favourites if he's hurt or something) as we cuddled. He was singing along too (and in tune with me, I might add! That boy is a musical genius! Either that or we were both horrendously out of tune ;)). After that, I carried him the rest of the way home.

As I said, he's napping now and I'm still not feeling that wonderful but I'm so glad that rather than insisting on him going back in the buggy I carried him because we had such a lovely time and there were so many sweet moments during that walk home that again reminded me how blessed I am to have such an amazing boy.

Disclaimer: In case you're reading this and thinking that I think I'm pretty amazing, I really don't think that at all and I know that there are a million things I could be doing so much better. I have plenty of days where, as lovely as Caleb is, he is really hard work and I feel like I am really not cut out for this motherhood thing, but today it just reminded me to cherish the little things because really, they are the big things!