Our Toby

I really love having a third child.  I knew I'd feel this way before he was even born--I can't imagine our family without little Toby being apart of it.  I describe him as our little charm, because he has this power to make us smile when we are sad or crying.  If Elliott is crying because she got hurt, I can say, "oh, I bet Toby can make it feel better," and most of the time she'll go walk over to him and give him a hug.  Often, he thinks it's funny when his sisters are crying, so he laughs (obviously, he doesn't know any better.)  "Oh, Toby wants to make you feel better, see he's laughing.."   It's hard not to smile back at a laughing baby.



He is 9 months old now and his personality is just exploding.  He is so silly.  Callie and I like to call him our "silly boy."  Callie is an amazing big sister.  Her little heart loves him BIG.  Sometimes I'll find Toby wrapped up in her tree blankie and little bear blankie, which is an expression of her love, because she is sharing with him her most prized possession.  I'll also add that nobody else in the family has ever experienced this particular privilege from her yet.  She's a little confused that boys don't wear girl sun hats, so I'll walk into their room to find Toby sporting a white lace sun hat with purple ribbon and bow.  She also told me the other day that Toby told her that his favorite color was pink.  Recently, I told one of my friends that I'm not worried about me spoiling our little boy, but I am worried that Callie will spoil him.


Ellie is a great big sister too.  She expresses her love with a dash of rough and tough.  She's rather intense, so sometimes Toby doesn't appreciate her love..like when she's sitting on him, but he does adore her.  She can get him to giggle and squeal like no other.   It usually occurs when she is being rough like giving him really hard pats on the chest over and over again or dropping a book on his head over and over again.  I do not know if I'll ever understand why it makes him laugh, but that is why she keeps doing it over and over again, because she likes to make him laugh. (FYI: I do put a stop to the repetitive love taps.)


Life is a little more chaotic with Toby, but for the most part, it's been an easy and enjoyable transition to three kids.  With Callie being a little older than 3.5 years, and Ellie being 2.5 years when Toby was born, I really just added an incredibly easy newborn with two little sweet helpers.  Splendid.  

I am the youngest of four.  My mom had four kids in five years.  She says she doesn't remember the 80s. I believe her.  She's told me a couple stories about my oldest brother, Joel, looking out for me when I was just a crawling baby.  Joel is about 3.5 years older than me, just like Callie and Toby.  There is one story where she heard Joel yelling for her to come help, and she found him at the top of the stairs holding my feet because I guess I had started crawling down the steps and was about to tumble.  And there is another story where, same thing, he's yelling for help, and she finds him in the kitchen holding up the silverware drawer, because I had pulled myself up and pulled it out too far, and it was about to drop on me.  (mom-sorry, if I don't have the facts straight in those stories.)  Just like my brother looked out for me, Callie and Ellie (especially Callie) are doing the same thing for Toby.  I've already had to come help Callie rescue Toby from crawling down the three steps that lead to the backyard.  I wonder if he'll ever now how much we all love him.  

They can not keep their hands off him.