Night & Day

Well, scratch Nilla Wafers from the grocery list! Since Baylor loves Animal Crackers, I had the grand idea that Nilla Wafers would be hit as well, and they were. The only problem is that they're smaller than Animal Crackers, and Baylor likes to cram them into his mouth whole, suck on them until they're a soggy mess, and then he regurgitates them all over the place. Yeah, not a pretty sight! You know it's bad when we, his parents, are grossed out. I mean, we've seen it all.

So this latest incident has me thinking. Our boys just couldn't be more different. It's like night & day. Jax is borderline obsessive-compulsive when it comes to staying clean, especially his hands. He does not under any circumstances get his hands dirty. Now, his clothes, that's a different story. He has no qualms about sacrificing his shirt or pants to insure that his hands & face are spotless. In fact, it took several trips to the beach to convince Jax that sand is not dirt, that it's something that is fun to play in.

Baylor does not seem to have these same issues with filth. Bath time now immediately follows dinner because Baylor somehow manages to smear food all over his face and in his hair at every meal. It's quite a talent!

The boys are also polar opposites when it comes to what they eat. Jax is a picky eater. He hated baby food. To this day, we jokingly refer to Jax as our anorexic child because he just doesn't eat much. As you all know, Baylor doesn't have that problem. With him, we have to monitor his intake because he'll eat until he overflows, literally.

Their eating habits also seem directly related to their builds which are also...um...different. Jax is built like Uncle Travis, thin as a rail. Baylor takes after Uncle Al. He's built like a linebacker! It works out well with the hand-me-downs though. Despite being born in different seasons, Baylor has always been able to wear the hand-me-downs at the appropriate time because Jax was on the smaller side of the growth chart & Baylor...um...isn't.

The boys play differently too. Jax's OCD tendencies carry over into this department as well. When he was little, he would line up his cars & trucks according to size and color. It used to worry us, but now we've just accepted that he likes order. I used to be amazed that Jax liked putting the toys away neatly in their containers when he was done lining them up. At one point, I was convinced that he liked cleaning up more than he actually enjoyed playing.

Baylor is the exact opposite. He scatters his toys from one end of the house to the other. It's ridiculous actually. How can one little 8-month old boy create such chaos? And, even more importantly, why don't Jax's OCD tendencies extend to Baylor's mess? He'll stand in the living room, surveying the destruction, shake his head, and say, "What a mess!" Then, he just goes upstairs to his usually neat & tidy playroom, leaving me to clean behind the twister of activity.

Of course, these are the obvious. There are tons of more subtle differences, like Jax has always been a giggler, but Baylor has more of a chuckle. Jax hated his car seat. Baylor, however, seems indifferent. Jax absolutely refused to sleep more than 3 consecutive hours, and although it took him a while, Baylor now really enjoys his 12 straight hours of sleep!

I could go on and on, but you get the drift. They are brothers, but they are individuals. They have their own distinct personalities and habits. So when I think back to the moment during my last pregnancy when we learned we were having another boy, and I breathed a sigh of relief because I thought, "Oh, well at least we know what we're in for this time around," I now know that I couldn't have been more wrong!