On Fri, 14 Apr 2000, Mary Krugman wrote:

> Don't you love it? It makes all those nights walking back and forth
> worth it.

Sarah's only 21 months old, and I've already forgotten all that stuff.

Maybe it's because I'm experiencing parenthood for the first time in my
40s, when the passage of time is already picking up speed.  The first year
of Sarah's life -- the supposed endless ordeal of nighttime feedings and
lost sleep -- was over with before I could say "Wha...?"

All those nights walking back and forth?  Well, I vaguely recall walking
around carrying her to help her sleep, but not really anything I could
honestly put down as paying my dues as a long suffering parent.  And it's
not because those chores were left to my wife, since Janice and I have
shared child care responsibilities from the beginning.

Sarah sleeps through the night and feeds herself with a spoon, and has
since I don't know when.  She asks for food by name, though she doesn't
yet grasp the difference between an apple and a pear.  She disdains the
high chair and prefers to sit at the table (on a booster seat) with the
adults.  However, when we have visitors to dinner, as we did for Seder
last night, she magnanimously agrees to sit in her old high chair.

Then there are the so-called Terrible Twos, which are said to start at age
one and extend to the first day of kindergarten.  Well, Sarah is not
technically two yet, but she continues to be as sweet and charming as
ever, with only an occasional brief trantrum when we take something
dangerous or delicate out of her hands.

There is a technical term for this: Sarah is an "easy baby".  Probably by
temperament, she has a positive outlook, a resilience in the face of minor
adversity, and recovers quickly from being upset.  She loves to go out and
see people and places, and almost never cries in public, so perhaps unlike
some of her age peers, she regularly accompanies her parents to
restaurants, political meetings, religious services, folk dances, etc.

There are two schools of thought about this.  When she was three months
old, one pediatrician said: "The good news is, this is her adult
personality."  (He didn't go on to offer any bad news.)  Others say
menacingly, "You're going to pay for this when she's 14."

---
Lawrence Kestenbaum, [log in to unmask]
The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com