The Prophecy Was True?

"Sweet cuddly chunk of joy"

I was teaching a 4th grade special ed class when I was pregnant with my first child.  Spent my days waddling up and down the halls, taking 'field trips' to the faculty bathroom (my class was outside in a portable, so I couldn't leave them alone).  The kids would take baby steps slowly down the hall as I made haste (as much as I could in my enlarged state) to the restroom.  Then we'd all head back to the classroom.  Lots of fun.  What I really remember though, were all the wise grandmother volunteers that milled around the school.  In the south valley of Albuquerque, where I was teaching, almost all the families are hispanic, and grandmothers are a big part of the culture and success of the community.  Abuelas rule the roost, and were also a big part of our school, helping teachers with prep work, reading to kindergarten kids, generally being there when they were needed.  They also shared there wisdom and intuitions, especially when you were pregnant.  They knew I was pregnant before I told them.  They new it was a boy before I knew myself.  And after he was born, they smiled and shook their head and all agreed... "Oh.... mijita, He's a devil baby!"

Don't be alarmed.  This wasn't a Rosemary's baby kind of prophecy.  What they meant was that my first born was dangerous because of how calm and easy he was.  He slept (a lot) smiled, cooed, and would lay in his bouncy seat and stay happy for long periods of time.  He loved being held by anyone, ate like a champ... you get my drift.  He was the kind of baby that lured you into having more, by giving you the sense that having babies was easy, that you could easily handle several of these sweet little cuddly chunks of joy.  Apparently, the devil baby is the one who inspires parents to take the leap again, and it was my first born without question.

For 6 years I forged through life with Kelan and his sweet, honest ways.  This was the boy who's favorite dessert for many years was an apple.  If someone offered him a candy he would stop and look for me to make sure it would be ok for him to have it.  Even if I wasn't there, he'd say things like, "I'm not supposed to have a treat until I finish lunch".  He was earnest.

There is a confidence that builds when you are a parent for a while.  That feeling the first day you come home from the hospital, the "Really! They're just gonna let me take this baby home with me?!" feeling is slowly replaced with a certain degree of 'I can do this'.  I don't know if I realized that I had that confidence until number two was on his way.  I knew what supplies I needed for when he came home, how to set up his room and the bassinet in my own room, what a contraction felt like, and when it was time to head to the hospital.  I was ready.  I thought.

The birth was fine, very similar to my first.  I got through both without any meds, by writhing like a crazy person, flipping around, whimpering about lower back pain, feeling hot and hating the monitor around my waste.  Reilly was lovely and healthy and ate well pretty much from the start.  But from that point on, Reilly changed the game. Reilly taught me about colic, about REAL child proofing (and how to get sharpie marker off of kitchen cabinets), Reilly could climb out of anything, would hide at a moments notice and scare the pants off of me as I ran frantic trying to find him (he was always perfectly quiet when he did this).  Reilly would see a tub of icing on the counter ready for a cake we were making, and he would take it and sneak off to a closet to eat it by the spoonful until he was found out.  With my first born, tears would pour out at the first sign of trouble.  He would cry for spilling milk, or accidentally breaking a dish.  Reilly, on the other hand, would do it on purpose and then just stare at you while you reprimanded him.  He accepts punishments, like the loss of TV or dessert, but with a shrug and indifference that absolutely baffles me.  Who is this boy?  How can two people who both grew inside of me be so COMPLETELY different?

In a lot of ways I think it's great.  They definitely have their own identities, and they complement one another (sometimes).  But, as time goes on I realize that there is little advantage to the experience I've racked up with my first born, because number two plays by a completely different set of rules.  Yesterday, he decided he didn't like the lunch I had made him, so he put it on the floor and fed it to the dog.  "What?!"  This never happened with Kelan.  He may have decided he wasn't interested in the food I was serving from time to time, but feed it to the dog?  What's the natural consequence here?  I can't put the plate in the fridge for when he gets hungry later.  Do I just refuse him food until dinner?  How could he think it was ok to feed it to the dog?  I can't think of the last day that went by when he didn't leave me scratching my head.  So I am having to navigate the uncharted sea of pre-teen confusion with one boy, while re-writing all the charts I thought I'd already fine tuned.  Oh devil baby, you got me good.