It’s early to acknowledge this (given we only have 3 months of experience with a “typical” child), but I’ve started thinking about how different this journey is going to be in comparison to our experience with Audrey.

We’ve joked our house is Audrey-proof, but not child-proof. Audrey picks up things and hands them to us… “Daddy’s” she says, passing me some headphones, “Mummy’s juice” she says proudly, pointing at my glass of drink (not touching it). She is gentle, she is careful and she can barely reach/climb/have the strength to pull things over. Rex will be very different and it’s scaring me already. 

So funny to feel like parenting a “typical” baby is a pain in the bum. “He’s so sturdy!” we exclaim, with worried looks. “He’ll be an early walker” people tell us, and we exchange terrified glances. We are used to slow-mo growth; example – Rex is nearly 4 months old, he is wearing age 3-6 months (stands to reason) and Audrey wore these clothes around 10 months! It really puts into perspective how small she was. How small she is.

And with that we have an almost 3 year old who can’t walk. She started bum-shuffling at 18 months, all that time we had a “baby”. Rex is going to seem like a fast-forward monster child! I already call him chunk and he’s just a reasonable size, poor kid.

I say “poor kid”, but he’s still a real challenge, so it’s “poor us” really. He wakes a lot, still only sleeps well in the sling for daytime naps and can be generally unhappy just hanging out on his play mat. I am really banking on solids and sitting up changing him, I think he would prefer an upright view and he would enjoy some food, but God help us if that makes no difference! Eek.

I still recognise that people must think it’s nuts that I talk about our experience with Audrey as easy (Down’s Syndrome, oxygen canisters, tests and appointments and worries about her future…), but that Rex is hard. But no one has a baby expecting that much of your time together is stressful and he can make things stressful just being so whiny and needy. 

That aside, he is beautiful and he loves a laugh – I can already see that his sister is going to be such a great friend to him- he looks at her with love already and she makes him smile. They are fabulous children and one day Rexy, one day we will look back and laugh about how difficult you were!