I was guessing that Squeak weighs about 20 pounds. At her 6 month well baby visit recently, she was 19 lbs 15 oz. Still 75th percentile for length and head circumference and above the 95th for weight. She's doing great. She didn't even cry about the immunizations and just took a long nap afterwards.
A week and a half ago, she got halfway to sitting and fussed because the was stuck. Then later she tried again and was sitting. I am amazed at the ease with which these milestones come. She has to work a bit, but then suddenly, there it is! Nathan had to work so hard and be so persistent to achieve each milestone. I'm not sure I realized it at first, since he was my first baby. I'm amazed and delighted by the things his sister is doing, but I also have a new appreciation of how hard these things were for him, and how hard he continues to have to work for each success.
When I was a kid, I pursued the things I was good at and gave up on the things that were hard. Luckily, I was good at enough things that this strategy worked out all right for me. But now I think there is some value in persevering when things are hard or scary. I don't have great gross motor skills or ability to know where in space a moving object will be. I gave up on learning to ride a bike, and I cried my way out of many, many days of PE when we had to play various sports involving hitting, kicking, catching or throwing balls. I gave up on piano after 2 years and clarinet after a couple months. I understand how Nathan can get frustrated and give up-- it's not fun to try and try and try. But he's going to need to try and keep trying in order to have those successes. He's not going to be able to give up and skate by on his strengths the way his mom did-- too many things are hard for him to just work around them. I think there's a lesson for mom in here, and one that will apply to his sister too, about continuing to try those things that are difficult. Sometimes that's more important than being good at the stuff that comes easily. And maybe one of these days I should learn to ride a bike...
Valuable insights. I've found with my kindergarten students that the ones for whom everything comes easily, the first time they struggle with something, they don't know how to persevere.
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