So Much Alike

taken Dec 11, 2008

As I was changing Benjamin's diaper tonight (the second blow-out in a row), I was able to look at his chubby cheeks, button nose and bright eyes and then directly look at a photo Drew took of Jasper when he was perhaps about the same age. They look so much alike I am going to have to either date all the photos or label everything from their infant years. Even I cannot tell them apart in photos ... all the time. Of course, as much as they are alike, they also are very much individuals.


For starters, physically they have different projectile tendencies.

• You could not change Jasper's diaper without a) him screaming and b) him peeing into the air or hopefully into a cloth diaper that you had to use for cover immediately. Benjamin has no such issues. He's happy as a clam on the changing table, and I can count probably on one hand, maybe just spilling onto two, how many times he's pee'd while getting his diaper changed.



• However, Benjamin spits up ... sometimes great volumes, and at times in projectile fashion. (Sorry if that's TMI.) I seriously did not know why they made bibs for infants when Jasper was at this stage. All those layette sets with bibs were just an annoyance to me. He didn't need bibs until he was cutting teeth and drooling all over everything! Benjamin can go through multiple bibs in one day just with spit-up. It's unbelievable! (And they have to be sizable bibs. Those layette bibs are still an annoyance to me. They aren't big enough.)
  

While they were both big, healthy babies, Benjamin has never been able to eat as much as Jasper at one feeding. In the early days / weeks I'd try to get him to eat on both sides only to have him projectile vomit (see above) a good portion of his meal. That got old. So I'd acquiesce and feed less but more frequently. That, let me tell you, is not the preferred method. There were weeks I'd be feeding him every 1.5-2 hours all day and maybe every 3 or (on a good night) 4hours overnight. Those were l-o-n-g weeks. Benjamin has since stretched his feedings to every 3 hours pretty consistently again. However ...

The child is still not sleeping through the night. Every evening and night is different. But have no fear, he will wake up at some point to eat while we would rather be blissfully sleeping. Jasper was sleeping a solid 6 hours overnight by 10weeks. We're way beyond that at this point (13wks). Some nights for Drew and me it's just deal with kids, deal with kids, deal with kids until we crash from exhaustion. Sometimes I fall asleep while feeding Benjamin his last nighttime feeding, and then Drew huddles us off to bed to sleep a little while until Benjamin wants to eat again sometime between 3-6am. The worst nights seem to be when I've made it to bed around 2am, am awake at 4:30am for a feeding. Fall asleep on the couch while burping Benjamin. Wake up at 5:30am and don't want to try putting Benjamin down in the crib for fear I'll wake Jasper - who of course does not go back to sleep once he wakes up in the morning. So then I try to sleep a little more on the couch and then have to be back awake and ready to go when Jasper wakes up - which is always way earlier than I want it to be. On Christmas morning, it was at 6am. That was not the present for which I was looking.

Benjamin is not the angelic traveller Jasper was at this age. In fact, on the Cleveland - Houston flight on our way home on new year's eve, Benjamin got so riled up I could not calm him down. We had to swaddle him, and Drew had to hold & jiggle him to get him to calm down. Jasper was honestly as close to perfect traveling as we could imagine. We never had to coerce or cajole him as an infant. So now ... so much for perfect travel, especially when we don't have anything else going on ... like traveling with a toddler. (I did not say Jasper was angelic as a toddler.)

Benjamin's hair that started out surprisingly dark (not overly dark, just drker than we expected) is finally starting to lighten. Remnants of his dark hair line the base of his skull, but on top it's soft blonde lockes. Pretty soon they are going to be harder and harder to tell apart, but we can't wait for the fun that is yet to unfold.