– 12:01 pm

I remember when you met your grandad for the first time. This was in Riga in the heart of Winter when we flew over. Hell broke fucking loose. You acted like we’d sold you into slavery. I mean, my God you cried. Today, he’s your best friend but that’s not how that relationship started, no sir — those introductory days sure scarred you both, in different ways.

I genuinely believe if you had to choose, you’d opt to live with your grandparents. Emotion aside, that would be a logical choice. You currently spend the most time with them. Endless happy hours filled with love, play and laughter. It’s everything (I think) an infant wants. You are living out a dream (and we’re ecstatic you are. We have no other wishes for you at this age).

Liza just came down to have lunch and I followed her into the kitchen to ask who she thought you’d want to live with if you had to choose between the houses. Interestingly, she said you’d one hundred per cent want to stay with us. You supposedly spend a lot of your time (with them) asking for Mama and Papa. I don’t believe this entirely. Your mum loves an exaggeration. But her viewpoint is very insightful. I would’ve put money on the contrary. But WTF do I know!? Not a lot. Clearly.

However, looking back at my own life, for a very long time my mum was everything. It’s only now that I realise and fully acknowledge the things I couldn’t see then. The seemingly passive role my father played. The metrics you use as a child to measure love don’t always provide the most accurate reading. You don’t care about who’s paying for your education or the clothes on your back for example. You care about who’s giving you the most hugs and who makes you laugh the most. Your mum and I aren’t that passive in your upbringing but that’s the bucket we currently float in – the financiers you don’t see a lot of. It’s in part the reason I keep this blog, to bring you awareness and give you better love measuring tools that take you beyond the surface.

So far this entire blab is to say, it wouldn’t surprise me if you had a favourite parent. It seems my thinking isn’t misplaced either. There is some – thank you Google – science and normalcy to it. None of it strikes me as rocket science.

For example, you hate sleeping with me at the moment. (And yes, we’re still taking shifts between us.) I had you a night ago and you woke up around 1:24 am refusing to go back to sleep and screaming for your mother. Pointing upstairs and hysterically trying to leave the room. You were inconsolable. You stood in the middle of the room going at it for about twenty minutes. There was nothing I could do besides let you cry (and hopefully get tired enough from it). That worked. You fell asleep in my arms.

It’s not the first time you’ve done this to me (and so far only me) but it’s the first time you’ve done it twice in a night. You were up again around 7:17 am with the same “go fuck yourself, find my mother right now” vibe and thankfully that’s around the time your grandad shows up to pick you up. 7:30 am to be precise. I was happy to make the exchange.

Thankfully, I have my wits about me and can remove my feelings from this situation and put your needs first. I know better than to take this personally. There was a time when you favoured me for a lot of things and I recall your mum understandably having trouble trying to compute why the child she carried and brought into this world wouldn’t understand that all she has to offer is unconditional love. So whilst my reaction isn’t like hers, I completely get it. As Jimmy Fallon put it, “Everything is mama“. For now, it is.

Staying in line with favourites, you’re still dancing around with that guitar. You’ve added vocals to your set now. Liza has a video of you from dinner last night. It’s so funny to experience it in person. So music (or la-la as you call it) is still your thing. You also love assembling things. Building stuff. For instance, you have a bicycle you refuse to mount but you’re all in the minute screwdrivers come out and we have to pull it apart. Once we’d put it back together, I asked if you wanted to get on it and you went, “No”. OK then.

I really have to be ultra careful with tone and language around you. Your speech and development have improved so much. You are copying every single thing at the moment. My voice is naturally very loud even when I don’t mean to be confrontational. The other day Liza and I were talking and in the midst of it, you started shouting and gesturing like an angry coach on the touchline incensed by a refereeing decision. You were simply copying me. So I have to be very careful now, that goes for diction too.