One
of the first things I remember when we brought Will home was crying to
Mick about how things weren't going to be the same for Colin and I. I
had given Colin so much undivided attention and he was so attached to
me. He was the light of my life. Most people have siblings and I don't
really know what I was so worried about. It was just going to be an
adjustment; our family dynamic was going to change. I had no idea how
different it would be! But the differences really didn't happen until
Will was about 15 months when I started to feel things weren't quite
right.
I'll
back up to Will's blissful baby days. First, he was absolutely
adorable. He was chunky and soft and loved to cuddle. He nursed with the
best of them and loved to fill his belly. He had a little colic for a
few weeks; but, again, nothing totally out of the ordinary.
I
remember Will being a really good baby. How many times have I read of
moms saying their speech-delayed kids were great, quiet babies. Will was
so quiet. I don't remember him babbling like a baby does. More than
anything I remember about Will when he was a baby is that he loved to
bounce in his bouncer. He would bounce for hours a day. In retrospect, I
believe this was probably really good for him as it helped him gain
some gross motor skills. He just loved bouncing and bouncing and
bouncing. I loved it too because I was able to get tons of things done. I
would just bring that bouncer around the house with me and he would be
happy in there.
When
I think of Will when he was a baby, I also see him strapped into his
baby chair on the kitchen table staring at the ceiling fan moving on
low. He always seemed so mesmerized by it. He would sometimes kick his
little legs and get so excited about it. It was same thing over and over
and over again, day in and day out.
Will
sat up at a normal age, about 7 months.Will crawled a little later than
I guess what would be considered average. He was 10 months. He worked
so hard on it for so long. I have heard of babies walking at 9 months
and I thought, 'well, he's so big, it's probably harder for him to move
that body around!' He was always so content just to be in one place. He
would just sit there too; never played with toys; never had much to
vocalize or complain about. I would encourage him to play, I would sing
to him, I would constantly be talking to him. Things were just a little
different than with Colin, who I had started to think was a super baby!
Though realistically Colin just moved at the average pace.
A couple little things when I look back that I can see as possible issues are: Will had a hard time holding a bottle for his babysitter or me once he quit nursing. He didn't really know how to do it. His little hands were always kind of in a fist. He also would not know how to swallow baby food properly. We would stick it in his mouth and he would kind of like "bleck" it out with his tongue thrust forward. Eating was a messy ordeal for him, but he always managed to eat.
The
thing about Will that is still very apparent today is he has a social
smile and many facial expressions when you interact with him. I often
would catch him with his mouth open, "catching flies" if you will, but
as soon as we'd play or get down to his level, he would light up and
smile. His smile is big and bright and fantastic. He loved faces. He had
a baby doll that he would look at and smile. He loved the baby books
with photos of babies.
Still,
these days nothing really seemed amiss yet. True, there were no words.
No mama or dadda or doggie or kitty, but I don't even really remember
fretting over that one bit. I had tons of people say to me "his brother
talks for him." Lordy, how many times have I heard that one! I remember
we were all worried more about the fact that he wasn't walking yet. I
don't know why we wanted him to walk so bad. There was something about
that. It seems stupid now how bad we wanted him to walk!
All in all, Will was an easy baby and had no red-flag issues. And also he was absolutely adorable. Did I say that already?
He is so stinkin' cute.
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