niblet.us v5.1

That Was Then

August 26th, 2009

Back in the day, I think I posted about Will’s every cough and sneeze.  He was the first grandchild on my side and the first on Angie’s side in a few years.  We lived about 500 miles from any relative, so the constant posting of photos, blogs, and videos let everyone keep in touch.  Leo, however, gets the short end of the stick.  Even with the website move, the older videos of Will don’t work anymore.  So other than YouTube, does anyone have a suggestion for a decent video hosting service?  It will probably take me weeks to upload all the little videos of him and Leo.

Now back to Leo…  If you ever watch Will when he was younger and experienced some of his…  difficulties, and you can imagine a baby that is the exact opposite of that, then you have Leo.  Everything from their eyes to their affinity (or lack thereof) for the bottle are on opposite sides of the scale.  We have videos of Will crying because he couldn’t crawl when he wanted to.  Leo would quietly resign himself to trying again.  Will would scream bloody murder if he was laid down for a nap, Leo simply turns his head and goes to sleep (although neither have slept alone all that well until after age 1).  Leo laughs and smiles, a lot, he is quite simply a happy baby.

I am not sure how I would have held up had they come in reverse order.  In some ways, we thought if we survived Will, we can handle anything.  Even to this day William is stubborn as a mule and generally goes to the beat of his own drum (he went to school today for a bike race and wore his helmet, even when all the kids stared at him, he was content to wear it).  I am very excited to see Leo’s personality come out more and more as he gets ever so close to speaking.  He flaps his arms and makes all kinds of noises, but no real words (in moments of duress and despair, he will say mum mum, but I think that just comes out).

There is some speculation as to the final color of Leo’s hair too.  On some days it is definitely orange/red color and others I swear it will darken up and look more like mine (which has all kinds of colors, seriously ask people that cut my hair).  He is crawling too.  He went from a belly scoot to a full fledged crawl in a number of days.  He can roll from front to back, but gets suck on his back and he can sit up without assistance too.  He still seems to struggle with eating solid foods.  He either really hates the taste of everything (must be a Beale!) or he just doesn’t get the whole spoon thing.  In short, he is growing up rather quickly.

I can only imagine what its going to be like when Leo is old enough to run around with Will and come out to the shop with me.  Switching back to Will, he has finally gotten the hang of potty training, although the accidents still happen.  Nine times out of ten, accidents happen because he is stubborn and doesn’t listen to me when I tell him to go try.  But what do I know, right?  I am just his dad.

A note to facebook readers:  Facebook changed the way they post things and when I linked www.niblet.us to my facebook page it never posted a news feed, but apparently it does now***.  Just be aware that for whatever reason, the photos in the posting don’t come through the news feed, so to get the full effect, you have to go to www.niblet.us, should you care to.

***I’d prefer to post discreetly and not spam the hell out of everyone (which is basically what the facebook news feed is), but the link is convenient for a few people.  It does worry me that my high school English teacher has the possibility of reading my horrific grammar and punctuation, but rest assured Mrs. B, I am much better at giving speeches.

Entry Filed under: The Next Generation