Xander Week 15 – Why Won’t You Cooperate?
January 3, 2007
I think that everyone knows how much babies enjoy making their parents sound like complete idiots when talking about what their kids can do. For example, Xander has this really cute “trick” where if you blow on his face, he sticks out his tongue, blinks quickly and wiggles his whole body – it’s really quite adorable (see picture). When I told my in-law’s about this, and then tried to show them, Xander just looked at me like I was completely insane. I think most parents have experienced this at one point or another, but it’s always frustrating.
On New Year’s Eve we had our friends over. Some of our friends had yet to meet Xander, but they had all heard about him, and that we had been having a good time with him, and that we thought he was a pretty easy baby. At about 6:30pm on New Year’s Eve Xander decided to start crying. He didn’t stop until about 8:30pm, and even after that he continued to be fussy throughout the night. I kept telling everyone that he wasn’t usually like this, that he’s generally a happy baby, etc., but I could see the looks of disbelief when I talked about this. To add insult to injury, one of our friends brought their 6 month old son over, and he was entirely well behaved – he didn’t really cry at all that night. Xander finally went to sleep around 10pm, and slept through the rest of the entirely loud party, which was impressive, but I don’t think many people noticed that 
So, I’m sure it’ll happen many, many more times, and each time I will be frustrated when Xander does things that are not consistent with what we expect, or won’t cooperate when I want to show off his latest exciting development.
Hi Sara,
I am so amused each time I read your blog because Xander’s behaviour is identical to my baby daughter’s… Like, the blowing on the face thing, for instance. My husband blows on her face ALL THE TIME and she reacts exactly as you described Xander does. It’s adorable.
Likewise, Natasha is also a rather easy baby, hardly ever cries (only when she needs something), but when we went to my parents’ this past weekend for New Years’, she cried practically through the whole night. This also happens whenever we have anyone over. People get the impression that she’s a fussy baby, which isn’t the case at all.
Maybe we should have our lil’ ones meet up when they’re older, they’d make a cute little match.
(just kidding
)
Hi J – I’m always happy to hear that my kid is “normal” when compared to other kids of similar age. We do love the blowing on the face thing.
What is up with happy babies crying so much when other people are around or on New Year’s? Xander has started to be fussy when other people hold him, which concerns me a bit, since we’ve got such a large family, and everyone loves to hold him, so hopefully he’ll get through this phase soon!
We’ve jokingly pre-arranged Xander’s marriage a few times, so we’d be happy to include Natasha in the mix (hehe)