Not a Baby Anymore

You'd think that parenting a second child would be less surprising than parenting the first but that's definitely not the case. Not only is every child different, but parenting styles tend to change over time. With Corbin I sometimes feel like I rushed everything. Not that I didn't enjoy him being a baby but I was so excited to see him do new things and he gave me a lot to be excited about. He felt so grown up to me all the time. I think partially because we didn't have many friends that had kids so we started going to playgroups when he was only 8 months old. The kids there were all at least a few months older than him but I didn't see it that way. I kept thinking he could do anything they could do and he proved me right time and time again. He started walking at 8 1/2 months and running everywhere shortly after. He was an early talker and knew things like recognizing all of the letters of the alphabet by sight before he was even 2 years old. It all just went by so quickly and it still does. He still amazes me every day with the things he does and all that he understands at such a young age.

I don't really think I understood how fast it had all happened though until Alora came along. Seeing her tiny little body next to his made him seem so big. Having to take care of the needs of a newborn after a few years break made me realize how grown up my little boy had really become. He didn't need me anymore the same way Alora did.

And Alora did really need me for everything at first of course. But now she's nearly 2 years old and its hard for me to accept that she's just not a baby anymore. Where I was in a huge rush for Corbin to accomplish every new milestone, I was more than happy to sit back and enjoy Alora being a tiny baby. She did not share these feelings. She quickly put to rest any ponderings I had about whether I had pushed Corbin to do things earlier than he would have on his own. She started talking just as young as him, started walking a week and a half after he did at 9 months old, and surpassed him on some milestones like crawling, climbing the stairs, feeding herself, learning her colors, etc.

But in my eyes she was still just a baby. No matter what she did I'd look at her compared to Corbin and think "Corbin can do that but Alora can't yet. She's still too young." Who was I fooling? Certainly not Alora. She just keeps right on growing up and I'm finally catching on.

She does new things every single day but the past couple weeks have just been a huge eye opening time for me. First we bought the kids as Plasma Car. If you don't know what they are, look them up because they're tons of fun. You sit on it and move the steering wheel back and forth to make it go. It's made for a little older kid than Alora but she ended up learning how to ride it faster than her big brother! Pat bought her a scooter. Corbin has had one for a few months and struggled with it and wasn't as interested in it as the bike...until Alora got hers. The first day out of the box she figured out how to ride it and keeps getting faster and faster at it. Now, of course, Corbin is learning to ride his really well too because you can't let your baby sister learn something before you.

Oh and the clothes. She has to pick them out on her own. We took her shopping this past weekend to get some new clothes since she was outgrowing everything. Pat sat her down in a store and told her "Go pick out your clothes" and she really did. She'd go through the racks looking at each thing, even checking the tags (no doubt copying what she sees us doing) and pick out the things she liked. She wanted to carry them to the cash register herself and hand them to the cashier. At home she picks out what she wants to wear pretty much every day and refuses to let me put clothes on her if I try to talk her into something else. She definitely has her own ideas.

And then there was today. I used to take Corbin to story time at the library around Alora's age so I got the idea that I'd take her once and see how she did. She can generally be a pretty spirited child so I had pretty low expectations and thought we'd end up leaving part way through but she did awesome! The story time lady read the kids 4 books, did a couple mini-stories with magnets on a white board and had them sing 4 or 5 songs with dancing involved. Alora went right along with it all! Most of the kids there were quite a bit older than her but as soon as we went in she ran right over and started trying to play with the big kids. When the story time started I waited to see if she would sit with them on the rug or come and sit with me. It took Corbin months of story times before he would sit with the other kids but she showed her independent side once again and joined the group without me. When they danced, she danced. Not always the same moves they were doing but she had a great time. When they sat for the stories, she sat for the stories and stayed (mostly) quiet and really seemed to pay attention. I wasn't sure if she was fully getting what was going on or not but then on the car ride home she said "I had fun!" I told her "Today they were talking about the letter H and hugs. If we go another time they'll talk about something else." A couple minutes later she asked me to sing the alphabet with her and when we were done she says "H mom! Hear H?" so she must have got that they were talking about H a lot :-)

So I get it, Alora. You're really not a baby anymore. Just don't grow up too fast and remember even if you're getting bigger mommy still needs lots of hugs and kisses.