Some days, it’s more than a little something.
It’s something fairly significant – like this:
Standing.
One of the things we’ve come to notice with these two good-lookin’ little people is that Morgan has a thing about constant motion, and needs almost constant ‘input’.
Liam can hang back with the best of them and observe, which I can appreciate, because I spend the better part of my time - when I'm together with all the Andersen women (my wife being the youngest of those) - observing, while they supply much of the ‘input’.
;-)
Well, so far, Morgan has been the first to sit up on her own, to crawl forward
...and now - the first to stand on her own.
While Morgan will take the initiative to stand on her own, at this point Liam needs to be coaxed and ‘pulled up’, and will then support himself as pictured above.
It’s not that Liam isn’t interested in any of these things.
As a matter of fact, now that he has the hang of crawling, I’m pretty sure he could whip Morgan’s butt in a crawling race (and you just know I can’t wait to get into the new house, where there’s more space to hold such an event. If I can set it up on a website, maybe we’ll get a little off-track betting thing on the side to help pay for diapers and stuff)...
It’s just that Liam’s more content with stillness, which will serve him well when life gets so stressful you just want to scream really loud and kick a hole in the wall. When that feeling befalls him, he’ll more than likely accept his situation calmly, and think his way out of it.
My wife would happily chime in here that Liam can do his share of squirming, too... It's just that his tendencies lean toward something more calm than Morgan's.
And hopefully, once he begins his mastery of using language as communication, he’ll be able to settle his sister down when she’s engaging in one of her tirades. She spends a good part of her day at this point (while I’m at work) spending massive amounts of energy in an effort to get the attention of her Mom.
Morgan screams. A lot.
Mom gets stressed.
I see it in Janne's face and hear it in her voice when I get home.
I experience it, too -
but not as often as Janne does, and it takes a toll on her.
Liam has more of a tendency to whine when he’s feeling needy
- but Morgan just lets it fly.
However, she is (they both are) also delightful and funny. Liam has a soul-warming charm, while Morgan’s impishness keeps you on your toes almost constantly. The only reason I say ‘almost’ constantly is that she sleeps occasionally.
To me, the coolest thing about their relationship with each other is that they have no qualms with each other’s personalities at this point. While Morgan will stand at the edge of the “Cage Match Cage” screaming for attention (she gets LOTS, trust me - she just wants MORE), Liam will sit in the background with a toy, and will look up at me and smile with a look in his eyes that seems to say -
“Well, Dad, that’s just the way she is. We’re a matching set.”
