Differences & Similarities

Teddy and Gwen have been quite different from the moment they were born. For starters they have very different eating habits. According to Everett:
“Gwen is like a goat – she gives everything a chomp.”
And: “Gwen loves to eat! That’s why her thighs are so meaty.”
As far as we can tell the only thing she doesn’t like is bananas. In contrast, Teddy is a pretty fussy eater. He won’t eat anything with texture or chunks; instead he wants everything smooth and pureed. He also prefers sweet flavors to savory. It’s been a challenge to get him to eat very much at all even though food is plentiful. If you give him a bite of something he doesn’t like then he opens his mouth, points his head down (to get some help from gravity) and then proceeds to retch and gag. Fortunately we have been able to find some sources of regular yogurt (i.e. non-non-fat yogurt, also known as just yogurt, that defies the current trend in the US of making everything non-fat). We now call it fat yogurt and we give it to Teddy often as a source of fat and protein.

The babies are also different with regard to mobility. Teddy is very mobile – he is on his way to mastering crawling and has already started to pull himself up to stand. Gwen just doesn’t seem as interested in moving. Until recently she was pretty passive. Over the last month she has become more and more wiggly, to the point where her continuous alligator rolls make her a bit difficult to hold, but she hasn’t yet taken in interest in crawling.

One thing the babies have in common is that they both find Everett very amusing. Often they will start laughing while watching him, even without any particular effort on his part. And thankfully Everett is very good at cheering them up when we ask him to. In fact, we have often acknowledged that he gets more responsibilities simply because he is so responsible. We try to consistently catch him being cooperative and helpful, and provide him with plenty of rewards. We had to get into some heavy bargaining with him while we were in Salt Lake City and we were able to maintain his cooperation by mixing in visits to the playground and the yogurt shop.

Comments (2)

2 thoughts on “Differences & Similarities

  1. I did not know one could still find regular yogurt…good for ya’ll.

    Please video one of those alligator rolls for your viewers.

    The Everett Snail Crawl makes me laugh too.

  2. re yogurt… Is it the cow’s milk kind? That was, I believe, the first non-Mommy food I gave my babies, and when they started on more solids, cottage cheese was part of the diet. But I was told many years later that cow’s milk (products) should be avoided for the first year. I also was not told until much later how I must position babies in the crib (good thing, because one would only sleep on his stomach and the other only on his back) or to avoid aspirin (alternating baby aspirin and acetaminophen every 2 hours was GREAT for earaches). The rules keep changing (including about fat) — as if parents didn’t have a hard enough time getting it right!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Powered by WordPress
Natural World RapidWeaver theme by ThemeFlood