by A. Kyles

Created on: July 26, 2008

There's nothing like wondering if your new baby is "normal". It's stressful and you tire of hearing everyone say "you can't compare this baby to your others". I have 3 children and the baby has me concerned.

My oldest daughter is seven and she is a gifted child - extremely smart and independent. At three months old, you could hold her hand and she'd walk. By six months, she was walking on her own holding on the coffee table or push along toy. At nine and a half months she was running all over the hosptial room when her brother was born. She never crawled. She was cutting teeth at four months old and talking at five months. I had her reading by the time she was four and a half years old. I can't tell you how proud of her we, her dad and I, are of her. She is reading on a sixth grade level and testing on no lower than a fourth grade level. She's difinitely our little smarty pants.

When our son was born, I held such high expectations but, he was slower at meeting them. He was a challenge and in some ways still is. He is smart but, he has to be interested in what he's learning! He is a very different child. He did not walk until almost eight months and not really on his own till a few days before his first birthday. However, he did start crawling around seven months. He did not cut teeth until he was seven months old. He was talking around eight months old. When we started school (I homeschool), he could only read about four or five words and he wasn't at all interested in learning. After our Christmas break, he took off and soared in reading. He ended up on a first grade reading level. We are fixing to start back in a couple of weeks and he's looking forward to what he will be reading. I'm interested in finding out how well he tests. I'm nervous but, I have to remember that he is different from his sister. He's not dumber - just smarter in a different way and in different areas.

Our youngest in nine months. She was born six weeks premature. We were told by the neonatalogist that she wouldn't have any delays - I begged to differ - and so we weren't expecting any. She didn't start crawling until eight months old. She is not talking - she has noises for everything but not words. We are still waiting for her first tooth to appear. She will, finally, hold on to our couch and walk the length of it. She hasn't been able to play with zero - six month toys until a few weeks ago. She wasn't sitting by herself until she was seven months old. She was having problems with eye-hand

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>