Welcome to 2013!

January can be a tough month in the Berkshires, especially when you have a 16 month old that flat-out refuses to wear any sort of winter gear! It certainly makes for long days inside and very short stints outside! We make the most of our Sundays watching football and the occasional bowling tournament (big surprise, right?).

the boys watching the Patriots

 We filled our days with playdates with our friends, gymnastics class for Ben (Nate wasn't quite old enough yet, not that we thought he could handle it anyway), weekly playgroup for Nate while Ben was at school, and just playing around the house. It was always a little tough to get out of the house, not because we had 2 kids under 3, but because we never knew what were going to get with Nathan. His personality and temperament were incredibly unpredictable. He was unlike any other 16 month we knew. He cried often and was extremely anxious around other people. It took a lot of work to settle him down and it was simply tiring, especially after not sleeping!

A little indoor fun for Ben

Ben at gymnastics

We had his 15 month well visit in December 2012 and we spoke of all our concerns. Our doctor listened, but seemed stumped. He knew we were frustrated as I (Amy) was at the brink of tears at every visit. We basically came to the conclusion that "it was just his personality." Now if that doesn't make a parent feel helpless, we're not sure what does! Because Nathan was eating and growing normally, there wasn't much to discuss. Outside of his sleep issues (he was continuing to wake multiple times during the night and was basically up for the day around 3:30 am), he didn't have any other major symptoms. We should note that at that visit, his measurements for his height and weight hovered around the 50th percentile while his head circumference was above the 95th percentile. We never really thought twice about it since big heads run in the family and those were his numbers all along.