In Which My Newborn Baby Turns Eight

The note about the blazer reminded me of this great article by Michael Chabon (maybe you’ve already read it)

https://www.gq.com/story/my-son-the-prince-of-fashion

I discovered your blog when I was pregnant with my daughter, who was born almost exactly a month after Toby, so I have felt a special sense of kinship and resonance as I’ve followed along on this journey. I feel the exact way. Time has expanded and contracted in ways I never thought possible; the newborn phase feels like just a minute and also an eternity ago. Eight feels big, on every level, and like passing through a portal into a new phase of childhood. Much love.

Celeste Ng has a line in Little Fires Everywhere that reminds me of this, the feeling that your child was always there, somehow with you in the past before they were born.

“To a parent, your child wasn’t just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all existed at once.”

I thought it felt so right when I read it and beautifully captures the crazy love you have for your children.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños Toby!
?Estassss sooonnnn las mañanitas? que cantaba el rey David ?a los muchachos bonitos se las cantamos asi?

Oh gosh, happy birthday to Toby and happy mama day to you. I’ve read your blog way before Toby was born and it’s been such a joy to watch your family grow and hear of their tales. Thank you so much for sharing.

Toby is basically my style icon. Happy birthday, rockstar!

No donuts? Did that tradition die out some years ago?

Happy birthday, Toby!
While I don’t have any kids, I do edit my younger siblings into memories all the time.

Happy birthday Toby! It’s been such a joy to watch you grow up (thank you, Joanna, for letting us in and sharing). Every time I board a plane and my impulse is to tap my foot or sigh with impatience, I think of Toby and all the things he loves about flying.

When I discovered your blog he had just been born!! Happy birthday to him! :)

Happy birthday Toby! Possibly the most stylish 8 year old in the world

When I was having trouble conceiving, I was off work with a broken leg and went back and read all the Motherhood Monday posts to keep me inspired. I couldn’t wait to have conversations with my 3, 4, 5 year old and go on “dates” with them, like you did with Toby (and then Anton). I now have a little boy and girl and it’s so wonderful being able to put into practice some of the things I learned on the blog.

Happy Day Toby!

Happy Birthday, Toby!! I remember your sweet Nine Months News post when you told your readers Toby was on his way :) time flies

HBD sweet Toby! I remember rushing home from school when I was in high school to check the blog to see if he had been born! Thank you for sharing your ups and downs with readers who love you, Joanna (and team). Your perspective, style, and advice have been a huge part of my journey from teenhood to 25, living on my own in Portland, OR, doing what I love. Many thanks and well wishes for Toby’s year 8!

Happy Birthday Sweet Toby! It has been a pleasure watching you grow up into a fine young man!

Can I just say that I love to hear you say that he is a joy to raise?!?! It shows what a wonderful mom you must be.

This accumulation of photos is super impressive. Can you please, Jo, tap someone to tell us parents who are drowning in photos how to wrangle them so we can come up with nifty every-year compilations like this? Or any compilations? Or – gasp – print them out into albums or books? Thanks!

I love how everyone is blowing out the candles with him. What a sweet post. I always look forward to your posts about Toby and Anton. It’s funny how your readers have grown with him too. :)

My “baby” is 18 and headed halfway across the country to college in less than three months. It makes me well up just writing that as I will miss her so incredibly much. My advice to parents of newborns is don’t blink, I could never ever have imagined the speed with which 18 years could fly by. She has brought so much joy into our lives that its hard to remember that we ever did anything fun before she was born. But we did, and I know we will continue to. I’m gonna try to keep that in mind until I can get into a new groove. Seriously — don’t blink!

This post made me realize I have been reading your blog for a very long time (since you were a single gal working for Glamour). It makes me so happy to see how much this community has grown and to see your beautiful family. All of us need a little Toby in our lives. I mean, look at his outfits! Happy birthday to Toby!

I first started reading once you had already had him but he was still a baby, and I remember that singing diaper pic! Following along always made me feel calmer about becoming a mom myself one day- and now my baby is six months! Thanks for helping me know o could do It, too. Happy birthday to your firstborn!

Happy Birthday sweet Toby. Cheers to so many more!!!

HBD Toby! I’ve love watching you grow! I’ve had two babies since Toby was born and just can’t believe it’s been 8 years. Also, no donut cake ?!?!?!

Happy Birthday Toby!

I read a quote that resonated so, so much with me around the time I had my baby— “Becoming a mother is like discovering the existence of a strange new room in the house where you already live.”

Everything is new but everything also feels oddly familiar. I always pass this quote on to new mamas now, and was reminded of it with your post about pre-children vacations.

Happiest of birthdays, Toby!! <3

oh my, Happy Day, Toby! So strange, I can clearly remember reading about baby Toby at my old work desk. What a wonderful boy you have.
This really got to me. I’m due to give birth to by second in a few weeks and trying to soak up the time with time with my first. I can’t believe my baby is going to be a big brother.

What a sweet note, and I can so relate: my newborn just turned 13! He is still a happy, kissy and huggy person, just as he has always been. That said, there were enough rough patches over the years …. I am watching in awe as he is growing into a young man. He is very tall, and he was very proud to go shopping in the mens’ department recently for the first time. Happy Birthday to Toby!

Haven’t scrolled the whole way through the comments to see if anyone else has made this “heh heh” joke yet… but he kind of WAS on your honeymoon! xoxo and lol

This post actually made me tear up. As a mom of two boys as well, my “newborn” is turning 4 in a month and I can’t, for the life of me, figure out where the time has gone. I’m so wistful for the days when he was that tiny, fresh baby and my husband and I felt completely out of our depth. At the same time I’m so excited to see him growing into a kind, funny, social bee who makes me laugh on a daily basis with his “-isms.”

“He can have some hard times, but I really understand him, and I can see myself in him. He has been a joy to raise.”

I could have written this word-for-word about my almost 5-year-old. He was classified as a “high-needs” baby, and that hasn’t really changed. He pushes me to my parenting limit every single day, but I wouldn’t trade him for the world. He’s the most determined, passionate, and charming human I know. I keep reminding myself those traits will serve him well as an adult :)

Happiest Belated Birthday to Toby!

8 and then 9 are probably my favourite ages in boys. :) They are genuinely the funniest people at that age. It’s interesting how they are different to girls. Girls, in my experience, have their “funny stage” at more like 10-11.

What you said about editing people into your memories reminded me of something I always find strange, and that is how my different friendship groups don’t know each other. I’m sure, like lots of adults, my friendship groups are very clearly defined. For me its “university friends”, “home town friends” and “work friends”. I often find myself thinking “HANG ON! Laura from university doesn’t know Jess from work!?! What madness!” I think because I know and love them both so dearly, it seems odd to my brain that they barely know the other exists, apart from a name I mention in passing now and then.

My husband and I always tell our friends who are on the verge of having babies that they should try really hard to take time to notice all the things they do in their free time. We look back and have NO Idea how we spent our time before kids! Glad to hear someone else say that!

Happy Birthday to both of you!! Looking at these old pictures makes me wonder —— did he ever develop a love for the violin ?? Remembering when he used to draw them! Thanks for sharing your sweet son with us. You have influenced how I parent my two boys – 2 and a half and 7 months.

I love 8. It’s wonderfully charmingly weird, where bedrock parts of the personality seem to manifest more powerfully at the same time the wider world is becoming more real, closer or more relevant (from what I have witnessed). It is such a joy to witness.

Happy birthday, sweet Toby! Thank you, Joanna, for sharing your family with us!

It might be Anton trying to get closer to the action, but their sweet little hands in birthday cake pic!

Happy Birthday, Toby! My son turned 6 yesterday, and at his birthday dinner, we somehow mentioned our wedding. It took me a second to look around and figure out that neither of my children was there…