Hello everyone, I’m a nine-month-old baby. I want to share with you all what happens in my daily life.

“Oh God! What is this annoying sound which is not letting me sleep?”

I ask myself as I turn on my stomach, put my hands straight on the bed and then lift my body to sit. “Ugh! It’s my mum’s alarm which is buzzing!”

I know exactly what I have to do! I smirk. One ... two ... three ... here I go, and I started my never-ending cry. I kept shouting until I was lifted in mum’s arms and being rocked for several minutes. I know it is exhausting for her, but all I want is her attention and love, that’s it.

In no time I became relaxed, my eyes got heavy and mum put me back to sleep again.

After a couple of hours of sleeping in the soft mattress and tugged in a cute little blanket, I woke up stretching my arms. I played for a little while with my plush toy while still inside my crib, and then started to make some noise. Mum heard me and ran towards me. She held me and spoke to me lovingly. I made weird faces and mum rushed me to another room, changed my clothes and got me into a new dress.

After a while, she took me to the kitchen. Urgh! That smell, I didn’t like it, but I felt hungry. Mum buckled me inside the high chair. Right beside me was my elder sister, she passed a smile and started wiggling me. It made me angry so I cried out loud.

Mum turned and scolded my sis. Yes! That made me happy and I gave a big smile.

My belly rumbled and I looked at mum and thought, “Oh my God! What is taking you so long to bring me something to eat?”

As I was about to cry again to show Mum that I was super hungry and could not bear it anymore, I saw Dad coming towards me. Dad is my favourite person. He carries me everywhere he goes. I love his ways of making me chuckle and giggle. Sometimes, he makes silly faces, with his eyes up and tongue out, and sometimes creates sweet tunes out of nowhere. I have a truly amazing Dad.

He picked me up to hug me and then he put me back on the chair to sit on his own chair to have his breakfast. This made me cry. I wanted him to pick me up and I was also very hungry by now. Understanding what my squalling meant, Mum brought some mushy banana and started putting spoonful in my mouth.

Yum, my snack was exceptionally delicious. As I was about to finish the banana, I heard laughter. I looked up and saw my mum and dad smiling, but my sister was laughing crazily as they all looked at me. I guess I looked like a real mess. Mum then cleaned me up, gave me my bottle of milk and laid me down on my carry cot.

In a little while, I noticed everyone was getting ready. Mum picked me, and off we went and sat in the car. I loved going out on drives, seeing the lights and colours all around.

As we came out of the car, Dad held me in his arms. We entered a big grocery store. Wow! What a treat to find so many things I wanted to play with — bottles, packs, jars and whatnot. So, I tried my best to reach out to the shelves to grab the colourful things, but Dad would walk away each time.

Since I get easily distracted, I noticed my sister munching on something and I craved to have that too. So I cried out loud for it, but Dad gave me my milk bottle. That wasn’t cool!

From the store we went to my grandma’s place — my second favourite place after my house. I love it there except when someone would pinch my cheek and kiss my face. I don’t like it at all! I don’t understand why people don’t realise that babies don’t like people touching, pulling, pinching and kissing them too hard. This is why I cry at parties as most of my relatives do this to me.

There were lots of aunts, uncles and cousins at grandma’s place. So soon I felt uneasy as everyone tried to pick me up. I was already tired and was quite sleepy, so I started crying loudly. My mum left everything and ran to me. She knew I wanted to be in my bed, so they said goodbye and we left for home.

Hah, I took a sigh of relief when mum gently rocked me in her arms and put me to sleep.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 22nd, 2024