Blood Brothers

It's funny how when you have your second baby, you think you know everything already. Especially when they're both boys. What could be different, right? And you expect everything to go exactly the way that it went the first time around. And then it doesn't. And you're like - oh yeah! they're different people - and you just don't know what is going to happen.

Is it just me?

Big C was somewhat of an "atypical" baby. We would faithfully read all the milestones in the parenting books and go "Yeah, that's just not happening right now." He got his first teeth at 13 months, and all of a sudden four teeth popped out with no drooling, no pain. Nothing. They just appeared. He didn't walk until he was 16 months. He would stand. He would walk if you held his hand, but that was it. We dropped him off with my parents one afternoon so we could catch a movie, came back, and he was walking. Nay, running. Boom. Just like that. After that, we pretty much disregarded the parenting books as being useless information..

Little G, on the other hand, has been pretty much right on the marker. And this time around, something would happen - like rolling over, or sitting up - and we'd consult the book after the fact only to find he was no "genius", he was just on track with any other baby in the world. In fact, I had noticed that he was particularly adept in the physical realm. Big C will sit and work at drawing for hours, while Little G is more hell-bent on destruction. He figured out how to open a bank of drawers so that they work like steps up to the counter. He, without any example from any of us certainly, will use anything stick-like to whack at any approximation of a ball. You can't turn your back on him or he will most likely be up the stairs or out the door before you can count to ten.

So we were shocked that month after month went by without him even coming close to walking. He actually didn't even crawl. He "boot-scooted" everywhere. I can't tell you how many people have commented on his crawling style. "I've never seen any baby crawl like that. Look at him!" Like he was a freak of nature, or something. I will admit that he kind of looks like some primordial ape when he crawls, but I have absolutely seen other babies do this. It's not new.

Anyways... he's been standing for ages. And then all of a sudden it happened. A side-step. A moment of free-standing. A couple of steps followed by a crash. Now, he's walking a few feet at a time before he hits bottom. Literally. And he's SO excited by it. He's trying so hard to walk all the time. He's getting it. Slowly. Several bloody noses and countless bruises later, he's getting it. The trouble is not walking. The trouble is that he wants to run.

16 months old. Just like his brother. Should I be so sentimental that they share something that is, in the long run, so negligable? I don't care. Today, it warms my heart.