Julie Jay: Everyone thinks their baby is the best — but mine really is 

Our baby is my biggest joy at the moment (along with his three-year-old brother). I am quite simply mad about this tiny man but I have to temper this delight for fear of boring people to tears with stories of how JJ rolled onto his tummy today or grabbed my thumb with his little fingers, pulling himself up like a gym-bro.

JJ Cooke may sound like the name of a solicitor badgering you about your neighbour’s right of way, but don’t be deceived — at the risk of paraphrasing Enda Kenny here, he is the best little baby in the world.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘Of course, you’d say that because everyone thinks their baby is special’. And you’d be right but the difference is my baby really is. When it comes to the best four-month-old, please inform other parents that it is a case of position filled, but thank you for your interest.

Over Christmas, my entire extended family — without exception — commented on how much our second son was of such an easy, sunny disposition.

“He’s so relaxed and content — he is his daddy out the door,” a relative gushed as JJ giggled along agreeably.

“Look at that for a pleasant, happy baby,” my cousin commented. “He is just so like Fred, isn’t he?”

I ignored the subliminal messaging that I am a bit of a high-maintenance emotional wreck — to be fair, it’s my comedy brand — and instead decided to find the compliment. I focussed on the fact that my baby is gorgeous, and even though the extended family subtext read that he is only this good because there’s very little of me in him, I am still taking the credit because I did, after all, make him with my own body. Take that backhanded compliments.

Great craic doesn’t even begin to describe the little guy (the baby, not my husband). JJ laughs when he coughs, laughs when he does a number two, and even laughs when he proceeds to spit up his entire bottle on the regular.

“You used to spit up so much I just used to turn you on your side straight after a bottle,” my mother noted, much like you would say to your favourite family alcoholic who had fallen off the wagon at Christmas.

The great thing about babies is that you can dress them up in black tie for no other reason other than the fact it is Tuesday. Today, it’s a little more smart casual — I am currently looking at JJ wearing a fetching check shirt, corduroy trousers and braces ensemble, and it wouldn’t look out of place on a Golden Globes red carpet. I love this time when I can treat him like a doll for no reason other than mammy is slightly delirious from a combination of leftover Quality Street and sleep deprivation. Having suffered from sporadic periods of being a negative Nelly in the past, I can categorically say sniffing a baby’s head is up there with all the good things in the world, even if that good thing is simultaneously spitting up onto your dry-clean-only gúna.

JJ is at the stage where telly rights are not an issue, and so is happy to leave the cartoon pick to his big brother, who is a little too obsessed with Spidey (basically a smaller, cuter, and significantly less disturbing version of Spiderman, whose penchant for webs paved the way for the arrival of the internet many moons ago).

And so it is, as JJ happily plays with his own feet and jiggles a rattle, that I proceed to tell Ted we’ve reached our Spidey quota for the day and turn off the telly. Needless to say, his response is less than acquiescence while JJ watches the poo hit the fan from the safety of his baby gym.

Bending down, I scoop a crumpled Ted up from the floor and cuddle him as he does the fake crying in my arms.

“I’m not happy,” Ted whispers as he leans into my chest.

“Well, you can’t be happy all the time,” I respond.

“JJ is happy all the time,” Ted says morosely, in such a way that suggests this is not a good thing.

I immediately check this sweeping statement. “JJ isn’t happy all the time. Because none of us are always happy, and that’s OK.”

At that moment, the baby coos and smiles in Ted’s direction before spitting up Niagara Fall levels of vomit down his front and, as if on cue, bursting into tears.

“JJ isn’t happy now,” Ted notes, satisfied, suddenly, with my hypothesis that human beings carry within them a capacity for a broad spectrum of emotions, and climbs down from my lap to give his baby brother a comforting kiss and a pat on his tiny, perfect head.

“You see, we all get sad sometimes,” I say, feeling somewhat vindicated but also inwardly crumbling at the thoughts of adding to my neverending washing mountain and cursing myself for once again dressing JJ like a retired MEP presenting Business Person of The Year awards.

I swap out JJ’s bow-tie tuxedo for something more casual, and as I change him, I tell him he really is the best baby in the world. Because if the Golden Globes gave out awards for best four-month-olds, my four-month-old would win it hands down. And that’s not parental bias — just recognition of the plain truth.