Remember That One Kid I Had? Almost Two Years Ago?

He is, in most ways, the opposite of his sister. This is more common than not, I know. The second one is looking for a place to fit, after all. Where my daughter is...full of 90 degree angles, let's say, The Boy is round. And squooshy. He fits...anywhere. Snuggly.

We laugh that he is The Mayor everywhere he goes. Everyone loves The Boy. He is so, so easy to love.

He's also just easy. Period.

He's recently started to talk with real enthusiasm for the sport. Stringing three, four, even five word sentences together, with this adorable little two-beat pause in between words.

"Tank you----Mommy."

He's showing the first signs of potty interest (OH PLEASE) which culminated in him SITTING IN THE TOILET WHILE FULLY CLOTHED at the gym's kid's club. He's also started to require "Poo-pate" for his tooth brush, which, I gotta tell you, mature as I am, makes me snicker. He's car-obsessed. OBSESSED. One day, The Man and I were saying how, at his age, TLNG was crazy about Elmo. (Remember that shit?) And how The Boy has no interests and what the hell is wrong with him and what are we going to have for 2nd party decorations? And the next day, it's like some kind of little boy switch got fucking FLIPPED up in here and it's all, "START YOUR ENGINES! RACE-RACE-RACE-MOMMY-I-WINNNNNN!"

He's coordinated and swings a baseball bat like he MEANS IT. He has a little lean-to-the-side stance and EVERYTHING. Crazy. He climbs and runs and jumps and not a single person who knows us in real life can believe TLNG ended up with stitches before he did. We got a [giant monstrosity] swing set in the back yard. It's huge and I imagined that The Boy would be able to navigate it independently by next summer. At a year-and-a-half, that kid climbed the ladder, went down the slide and was able to sit straight-backed enough for a big-kid swing. He uses a scooter. He's just...pretty cool.

And here's the thing: he melts my heart. Completely.

The connection that I've had with my girl, since the minute she came out, has been crystalline--amazing. Sparkly and intense. Rock hard and indestructible. As she's gotten older, she's gotten easier in some ways and way more challenging in other ways. I fully expect this trajectory to continue. Ahem. (Send help. Or chocolate.) But there is an intensity to her, to us. Our relationship is rife--fraught--with strong emotion, with a degree of struggle. Part of it is stage. Part of it is personality style. And while I love her and really LIKE her, even admire her spirit, sometimes it's kind of hard to be her Mommy.

But my boy. Oh, my boy. I don't know how to explain it, really. If it's the product of age and stage or gender or birth order or temperamental style. Or, most likely, all of the above. He sneaked up on me. He came into the world sleeping in four hour chunks and self soothing and before I knew it, he was walking and eating and playing and snuggling. He was easy. So easy and quiet, I could all of a sudden understand how someone might forget they had a kid in the car. Started to believe people who said their kids slept through the night at 3 months, because omfg, he DID.

It took a while to feel like I really know him, I think. The volume of his personality is a little lower and it was a while before my ears could adjust to hear it. But he seeped into my bones along the way and it seems that, like his car obsession, my intense maternal love for him got flipped and all of a sudden I'm crying because one day, he's going to have whiskers and be taller than me. Our connection is there. But it's so different than that to which I was accustomed. Softer and more pliable. Looping and elastic and comfortable. And beautiful, too.

VROOOOOOOM!

Comments

[rc helicopter]

Impressive blog! -Arron

[Sebastian Gaydos]

My son's the same. He's crazy about his "VROOM VROOM red" - that's a toy car I picked up for him a long time ago. It's not so much to look at with all the adventures it's been through, but hey, you can't separate a boy from his fave car.

[Marin]

Our second children sound similar. It seems to take much more energy to raise my oldest. My younger one is so easy by comparison. Low maintenance. And deliciously snuggly.

[Kelly]

My easy one is playing in her room right now, and my difficult one is lying on the steps yelling "I want you!" (Sigh.)

What a ride, huh?

[Manic Mommy]

Yes. It is primal. They own our hearts.

[Sarahviz]

I love this. You captured the essence of "boy" and your boy, perfectly.

[Amy Jo]

So very, very well put. They know how to get to us, right where it counts, those boys. My oldest and youngest are boys, and I don't know how I'm going to manage one day.

[Elizabeth]

This reminded me SO MUCH of the difference between my first and my second. And you are right, it is SO hard to put into words. One is much easier, one much more difficult. One I felt like I knew, from moment one, like he was a crabby little part of crabby old me, and my daughter is so wonderful and delightful and sunny and so foreign to me. And yet, I couldn't be more crazy about both of them. And still, it's so so different. And people told me it would be so different, before the second one came along, and yet you just can't imagine how it will be before it IS.

[slouchy]

There is something about boys...

[Amelia Sprout]

My heart just went squish. M is like TLNG, our relationship is strong, and fiery. She is a daddie's girl, until it really counts, then she wants me, except when she's mad at me.
I haven't been sure how H would fit in, but this, gives me hope. She's nothing like her sister, no matter how much they look alike.