Going places
When Jake was a baby, I took him anywhere, anytime, with almost no forethought or planning. He was an extremely easy-going and portable baby. I never worried about when, what, or if he would eat; he happily took a bottle anytime, and ate anything in front of him. I never worried about disrupting a nap; he could take a nap in the loudest of restaurants and the clatteriest of shopping carts. Moving him from the car to the house, from the carseat to his crib, he never batted an eye. If we had to make a 3-hour trek down to Ohio, there was a time when he'd sleep the whole entire way, right in the middle of the day.
When he was a little older, from around 16 months well into age 2, every outing, to him, was an exciting and fun-filled adventure (and he made it that way for me, too). A wagon ride down to the grocery store for a gallon of milk was AWESOME. We'd sing songs unabashedly (I never knew I could be so unselfconscious), people-watch, discuss everything under the sun, towing our wagon through the store as everyone smiled at us, Jake beaming and talking and charming everyone, thrilled at the idea he could pick out what color cap our jug of milk should have, maybe raking some yogurt containers into the wagon too. A trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles wasn't quite on a par with that, but I could make it sufficiently entertaining. Hey Jake, want to go pay the cable bill with Mommy? "OKAY!" Want to go to the bank? "OKAY! Can I get a sucker?" Want to drive up to the dumpster to drop off some trash that didn't make it out to the curb on trash day? "O-KAY!" It was ALL GOOD, especially if Mommy was going. Wherever Mommy was going was more than fine with him! The trademark "terrible two" tantrums weren't an issue, either. I never had to worry about it.
Now, just recently, he's started to become a little more particular about outings. More often than not, when I've asked him - just like I've always done - if he wants to come shopping with me, I get something like: "Nah, I just want to stay here and play with Lukey. I don't really like shopping." He's realized that some places are not as fun for him as others, apparently. And we've had to become more particular about the timing of things - because if he hasn't had a nap, which happens occasionally, he has a short fuse and can be prone to loud, tearful explosions. They're still fairly rare, but we don't like to take the chance. The days of an automatically portable Jake have come to an end, at least for now.
And then there's Luke. Luke's never been quite as simple to travel with as Jake was, so I'm always factoring in his naptimes and scheduling around his feedings. Nursing and napping are still fairly closely tied together for him, i.e. he's not as likely to nap if he hasn't nursed to sleep, and sometimes he's not as likely to nurse unless he's a little bit sleepy (he'd rather play until the instant he realizes that he's, all of a sudden, absolutely starving). He's still refusing to take a bottle, though we're making a little bit of progress with a sippy cup. I can't give him the boob while driving, Grandpa can't give him a boob, so things are scheduled around issues like that. Jake was just a ridiculously, almost unbelievably easy baby. At the time, I hardly realized it could be any other way. If I heard tales of babies waking up every 2-3 hours during the night, babies refusing to nap, I didn't even believe it; I couldn't fathom it at all. Now Luke's given me a bit of what must be a more "normal" perspective, and I'm glad for that. Now I feel like I understand what I guess "most" parents go through. I've had the easy and the not-as-easy, and thus I feel like a more well-rounded, capable parent who is now actually able to relate to those who didn't win the easiest baby in the lottery of temperaments.
When he was a little older, from around 16 months well into age 2, every outing, to him, was an exciting and fun-filled adventure (and he made it that way for me, too). A wagon ride down to the grocery store for a gallon of milk was AWESOME. We'd sing songs unabashedly (I never knew I could be so unselfconscious), people-watch, discuss everything under the sun, towing our wagon through the store as everyone smiled at us, Jake beaming and talking and charming everyone, thrilled at the idea he could pick out what color cap our jug of milk should have, maybe raking some yogurt containers into the wagon too. A trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles wasn't quite on a par with that, but I could make it sufficiently entertaining. Hey Jake, want to go pay the cable bill with Mommy? "OKAY!" Want to go to the bank? "OKAY! Can I get a sucker?" Want to drive up to the dumpster to drop off some trash that didn't make it out to the curb on trash day? "O-KAY!" It was ALL GOOD, especially if Mommy was going. Wherever Mommy was going was more than fine with him! The trademark "terrible two" tantrums weren't an issue, either. I never had to worry about it.
Now, just recently, he's started to become a little more particular about outings. More often than not, when I've asked him - just like I've always done - if he wants to come shopping with me, I get something like: "Nah, I just want to stay here and play with Lukey. I don't really like shopping." He's realized that some places are not as fun for him as others, apparently. And we've had to become more particular about the timing of things - because if he hasn't had a nap, which happens occasionally, he has a short fuse and can be prone to loud, tearful explosions. They're still fairly rare, but we don't like to take the chance. The days of an automatically portable Jake have come to an end, at least for now.
And then there's Luke. Luke's never been quite as simple to travel with as Jake was, so I'm always factoring in his naptimes and scheduling around his feedings. Nursing and napping are still fairly closely tied together for him, i.e. he's not as likely to nap if he hasn't nursed to sleep, and sometimes he's not as likely to nurse unless he's a little bit sleepy (he'd rather play until the instant he realizes that he's, all of a sudden, absolutely starving). He's still refusing to take a bottle, though we're making a little bit of progress with a sippy cup. I can't give him the boob while driving, Grandpa can't give him a boob, so things are scheduled around issues like that. Jake was just a ridiculously, almost unbelievably easy baby. At the time, I hardly realized it could be any other way. If I heard tales of babies waking up every 2-3 hours during the night, babies refusing to nap, I didn't even believe it; I couldn't fathom it at all. Now Luke's given me a bit of what must be a more "normal" perspective, and I'm glad for that. Now I feel like I understand what I guess "most" parents go through. I've had the easy and the not-as-easy, and thus I feel like a more well-rounded, capable parent who is now actually able to relate to those who didn't win the easiest baby in the lottery of temperaments.