You know how they say be careful what you wish for? Well, I should have listened.

One thing about a 4-year gap between children: You have NO IDEA how much you’ve forgotten.

For example:

• SLEEP. Newborns don’t sleep very well (so you don’t sleep very well). Now you KNOW this (who doesn’t?) but until you’re living it all over again, you forget how that turns your mind into mush…
• COMMUNICATION. Babies cry (for the most part) until they can talk. It takes many months before they talk and apparently, they have a lot they want to communicate.
• EATING. Food is introduced over time to avoid choking until they have teeth and know how to chew and swallow. However, they have no problem introducing items of their own, like stickers, scraps of paper and small toys.
• TEETH. They have none (see “eating”). And each tooth has to break through on its own time, sometimes bringing a snotty nose, poor sleep and diarrhea along with it. We are in this phase awaiting the first tooth, and it is NOT an overnight event.

Oh, and mobility, of course. There are milestones to hit (rolling over, sitting up, crawling, cruising, etc), which each child achieves in his/her own time. Here’s where you should be careful with wishes.

When you have a 4-year-old who REALLY wants a playmate, you realize how much lack of mobility slows that down and you might (as I did) wish for an accelerated timeline. I should have wished for a million dollars instead…

The picture above is from May 1st, as she first started “pulling up” and cruising. She was 7 months old. On Friday, June 26 (less than 9 1/2 months old), she took her first steps. While we don’t have a video of that, we do have this:

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And just a few days later, this:

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Now, she’s still not confident enough to be WALKING everywhere, but regularly she takes steps in lots of directions – especially when she isn’t overthinking it (sounds like good advice to the rest of us). Thanks, Holly, for documenting it!

Not that it’s a race, but Zoe took her first unaided steps at 13 months old. So if you’re thinking of making some wishes, I highly recommend you’re sure that you’re asking for something you’re ready to GET. While it might be cool to have an early walker, they’re still not early “thinkers”… (READ: she is just as likely to walk towards a wall electrical outlet as she is to our open arms for hugs – and she’s NOT walking to put away any toys)

So now we just need to work on the attention span of the older one, who is just not yet equipped to “watch” her younger sister for long – even though she is excited to have a slightly more mobile playmate. In the meantime, our jobs just got a lot more challenging. You’d be amazed how much damage a crawl-stand-cruise-step tiny child can actually do when you’re not looking for 3 seconds.

Wish us ALL luck ;)