Different

Last night was the "share" class for our Bradley Childbirth class. It's now two classes later for our teachers, and our little class of three couples now all have 5-6 month old babies. We all went back to share our birth stories and answer questions for some now very pregnant women in the current class. Kennedy is the "middle child" in our class. One of the babies is older, one younger. In addition to our class, there were two additional couples from older Bradley classes that came back as well. Their babies are much closer to a year old.

It. was. hard.

The class runs from 6:30 to 8:30. Well, Kennedy's bedtime is normally between 7 and 7:30. She normally starts her bedtime routine around 6:30 or 6:45. So we had exactly 15 minutes of "normal" Kennedy when we arrived...and then....well...it was a long evening.

I'm frequently confronted with the fact that Kennedy is more "high-maintenance" than a lot of babies. But for some reason, last night's class was rougher on me than usual. The other babies, of all ages, played contently with toys on the floor, or sat in their mom or dad's lap and hung out. When they got hungry, they fussed a little and then nursed happily. Kennedy screamed. We took her outside and she looked around peacefully. We brought her back in. She screamed. Andrew got her to sleep. People laughed. She screamed. Finally, I took her pants off (cue "no pants" song) and she was content to hang out for a good 15 minutes. But she required me to play with her. She required her daddy to play with her. She does not "just play."

Today we had our friend Jackson (7 months old) over to play and the mommies ate some lunch together. Jackson stayed in Kennedy's Baby Einstein jumper for about 30 minutes. He fussed once and only once...I walked over, turned the seat to another spot and he played contently again. When he started getting sleepy, he fussed, his mom picked him up and he sat in her lap and chewed on a burp cloth and rubbed his eyes occasionally. In the same amount of time, Kennedy played on the floor, sat in my lap while I ate lunch, sat in Jackson's mom's lap so that I could actually eat lunch, sat on the floor, "jumped" on my lap, nursed for a minute or two (nah, not hungry after all mom...) and then began to cry because it was getting close to her nap time.

Kennedy is different than the other babies we know. She's high-maintenance. Some would call her difficult.

But here's the thing. The way I see it? When I sat her on the counter in her Bumbo (yeah, I know, bad parenting) and she TAKES OUT everything around her...the pots, pans, paper towel holder, dish soap, brushes...literally ANYTHING she can reach (even when you thought you'd kept it all out of reach) she's learning. She's investigating. She's making connections. As Andrew says, "It takes a lot of effort to be THAT awesome!" So she can't sit still....wouldn't I rather have a kid who likes to play sports and play games with us and with friends than the kid who wants to watch TV? Don't I want to have the kid who wants to be involved in everything? Yep, sure do. Most days. Most of the time.

But I also think it's okay that sometimes...like last night...I just wish she was a little less maintenance!?