The Happy Baby is Realizing His Own Will

I feel very blessed by my children's temperaments. Overall, I have had some extremely easy going babies. Of course, Nathaniel hit his terrible twos where his first phrase was, "No! Mine!!", but overall he is a very good kid.

Aaron is even more easy going than Nathaniel was. When I think back on his short little life I realize that the only time he ever really cries is when he is in pain, sick or EXTREMELY tired (or hungry). Most of the time Aaron is content to crawl around wherever we are (or be held) and just smile at everyone and everything.

Of course, he is super goal oriented though. He practices whatever skill he's working on until he has it mastered. That's how he managed to learn how to crawl and move himself from the crawling position to the sitting position by the time he was just under 6 months old. And that's why he doesn't fall over when he pulls himself up to stand, because he practiced squatting and sitting. He is very determined to do whatever it is he wants to do.

That personality trait will serve him very well in the future. I see this kid doing great things by sheer grit and determination. However, right now it's driving me CRAZY!

Yesterday we were visiting some friends and their house happened to have stairs. When I put Aaron down to play he immediately headed for the stairs so he could climb them. Having no desire to play "chase the baby up the stairs" I thwarted his plans and blocked him from getting to the stairs. Instead of turning his attention elsewhere, he kept crawling towards the stairs and began to pitch a fit when I wouldn't let him get to the stairs. He whined and cried and kicked. Yup, it was AWESOME.

Tonight Sam was cooking dinner and I was in the living room with the boys. Aaron really really wanted to go touch the oven (which was on). I kept pulling him out of the kitchen and he would head for the Christmas tree. Over and over and over he kept going towards these things, and every time I pulled him away he would scream and cry and then head straight back to the forbidden area. We finally went into the boys' room to play where I could shut the door and not have to play the game again.

Nathaniel didn't hit this stage until he was about 18 months old. Heaven help us!

But, he's still quite the charmer (recent pics of the boys to come this week).