Part One: "The Normal Years"
My husband and I didn’t wait too long before beginning our family. About two months after celebrating our first wedding anniversary Nicholas was born. Well, to put it like that is an understatement. He arrived in a particularly dramatic fashion after a full day of induced labor and some concern from the doctors that the baby was under stress. I was finally whisked away to the operating room to deliver by C-section. If you’ve ever seen the John Hughes movie "She’s Having a Baby" it was pretty much like that only without Kevin Bacon. My DH still gets teary eyed when he hears the Kate Bush song from that movie, although he’ll never admit to it.
Nick seemed to be pretty much a regular baby. He had many cousins from whom to compare. We did notice that he didn’t drool as much as other babies, nor did he ever have a problem with spitting up. He decided to walk on his first birthday and he was very easy to potty train. He was rarely fussy and extremely well behaved for a little boy. We, of course, assumed that this could all be attributed to our excellent parenting.
It was with this sense of confidence (now, fully recognized as delusion) that we proceeded in providing Nick with a sibling.
Ian’s arrival was uneventful considering it was a scheduled C-section. Everything went well and by the book. My DH was relieved that we had another son. He figured we had such success with Nick "why mess with a good thing?"
Ian was completely different.
For starters he was lactose intolerant, therefore he was very fussy and spit up quite a bit, well, a lot really. Think of Mount Vesuvius and you’re somewhere in the neighborhood. It was discovered early on that Ian was also allergic to peanuts. Despite his "messier" start, Ian, like his brother Nick, was (for the most part) well behaved with an occasional lapse into mischief. His outgoing, adventurous demeanor was the perfect counter to his brother’s shyer, more reasoned tendencies. The two of them became "thick as thieves."
As a family we enjoyed trips to Disney, Santa’s Village and Story Land and numerous overnight camping vacations. Every weekend we would drive (when gas was cheaper than milk) to one of the many beautiful, scenic, picnic areas, or beaches that the State of Maine provides. Our life wasn’t perfection, but we at least seemed to live somewhere near it.
It was with this sense of contentment (now fully recognized as insanity) that we decided to expand.
To Be Continued
