Genius
It’s one of those tendencies for all people: if something bad happens, it’s bad luck. If something good happens, well, of course! You’re just so talented, what else should you expect?Of course I would never let myself be so deluded. I’m completely clear-eyed and dispassionate about all that. The difference is, when something good happens to me, it really is because I’m so awesome.
Take the first baby. We’d hear all the time, “Oh, Charlie is such an easy baby. You guys are so lucky.”
I would smile through clenched teeth and nod, but what I really wanted to say was “Lucky? Easy baby? No way! Me and Mrs. J are just so good that we make it look easy. This is genius parenting in action here.”
Well, now that Gus is home, I’m starting to question some of my assumptions. For instance, Charlie never cried unless there was something specific wrong with him. He was hungry, he was sleepy, he needed a change. That was pretty much it. The rest of the time, he just wanted to look around and take in the sights.
I had assumed that this was because of the calming presence of his outstanding parents gave him such a sense of tranquility that he didn’t need to worry about anything.
Well, I don’t think we’ve become particularly more high-strung in the last few months, but Gus cries a lot more than Charlie did. And sometimes, he doesn’t have anything wrong with him. He just wants to be held. And he doesn’t just want to be held by any old sucker, sometimes only Mom will do.
I’m tempted to say that, all the medical complications aside, Gus is quite a bit more difficult a baby than Charlie. But that couldn’t be, because that would mean that Charlie was… an easy baby. And now we have a hard baby. And if that’s the case, maybe it wasn’t our parenting at all!
On the other hand, Gus gets a sore tummy a lot, and we’re still trying to work out his feeding. And maybe the nurses instilled some bad expectations about parental interaction. Surely once he gets used to experiencing parental genius in action, it’ll all be different…
