My busy boys

I watched a video the other day of 2 British brothers, one was about 3 and the other a baby. The older brother put his finger inside his baby brother's mouth and was upset when his younger brother, Charlie, bit it. What amazed me the most about this video was how still the boys were. They were calmly sitting together in a chair. There was no wiggling, no fidgeting, no desperate need to get out of the chair. Neither of my boys are capable of sitting so still! What I think is kind of funny, is while they are both very busy, they are busy in different ways.

From birth, Caleb has always wanted my full attention all the time. As a baby, he liked to be held while I walked with him and talked to him. I remember spending most of the first few months of his life pacing the floor while holding him, with a slight bounce so he was getting additional movement and having to either talk to him or sing to him. He was quite content as long as I maintained this level of activity. He was not a baby I could put down in the swing or the portable crib so I could make dinner or fold laundry. I had to wear him all the time so he was getting the movement he needed and I had to talk to him or sing to him so his mind had something to do too. He was very interested in words and we remember him constantly watching our lips. His first word was "light" at around 9 months and he said it sort of like this "liiiyyyyyy". By the age of 16 months, Caleb had a vocabulary of close to 50 words. Talking has always fascinated him. As he has gotten older, his love of movement and words has not changed, just presented itself in different ways. As a toddler, he still liked to be held while I walked and talked to him, but he also loved to run. It cracks us up because we think the happiest day of Caleb's life was when he learned to crawl -- finally he could get somewhere on his own! Even now, he can't sit still to watch TV, he watches it while he is doing 10 other things. He still loves to talk and he demands an answer. If he doesn't get the answer he thinks he should, he just keeps asking. He has an amazing vocabulary and even makes jokes and uses sarcasm appropriately.

Zachary was a much more content baby, other than the colic. At around 2 - 3 weeks of age he started crying in the evenings for several hours. The rest of the day he was always pretty happy. The colic went away somewhere between 2 - 3 months. Unlike his brother, he was happy to sit in his swing at times while I made dinner. He didn't want to stay there for long, but he sometimes seemed to need a break from social interaction. Once he relaxed, he wanted to be held again. Zachary didn't have the drive to walk like Caleb did so that instead of beginning to walk right at 10 months (Caleb's first step was the day before he turned 10 months old), Zachary started walking about two weeks before his first birthday. He also took a bit longer to learn to run. On the other hand, he has always LOVED to climb. As soon as he started crawling, the stairs were something he could not leave alone. We finally gave up on the gate and just let him climb. As his coordination has improved, the stairs are no longer a challenge and he has moved on to chairs, cabinets and anything else he can get his feet onto. At our house, all the chairs are upside down to try and minimize his climbing. When he does get up on a surface, he loves to throw everything off! Just recently he has figured out that he can still use an upside down chair to climb on things, but sometimes he gets stuck in the legs of a chair. Zachary's other favorite activity is making a mess. Not that Caleb is a neat child, but Zachary seems driven to take things apart, he wants to see which object he can throw farther, what makes the best sound, what gets the biggest reaction out of mommy, etc. He always has to be into something. A tidy room is irresistible to him, he simply cannot wait to get in there and pull everything out!

I am interested to see where these traits will take them. While they can be a little distressing to me at times, I know there is a positive side to these activities as well. Caleb's love of words could lead to him becomea writer. Zachary's love of taking things apart could mean he is going to be an inventor. Both boys are very determined when they set their minds on something and I know that will be useful to them as they grow up!