The Baby

My friend has a son around Oliver's age with a name that comes with a variety of nickname options, so I asked him if there was anything other than the full name that he and his wife call him. He responded, rather bashfully, that, mostly, they just call their son "the baby." As in, "I think the baby needs his diaper changed," or "How's our little baby doing?" Then I realized I do the same with Oliver and so do many of my friends who also have kids well into toddlerhood. I even find myself calling Oliver "my little baby" even though he's of course not so little anymore.

The phrase my baby seems so darn cute, easy, comfortable. Now I know why the youngest child in a family is forever referred to as the baby of the family - there's no younger sibling to have stolen the title from him or her. But now that I'm expecting a second kid, of actual baby age, I'm trying to make the transition to other phrases like "my big boy," because I don't want Oliver to associate himself as being the baby, as in the one and only, and suffer a rougher transition than he's already going to experience.

As bittersweet it is for me to think about passing the title of "the baby" on, I suspect that years down the road I'll think of both of my kids as my babies. Even when they have babies of their own.