Suck it

Last night, Matt turned to me as we were sitting on the futon upstairs and said, "I can't believe how different the boys are."

And it is true. Grant is a horse of a different color in many respects. Sure, he's currently not a fan of the bottle (same as Cooper) and is very big and strong (same as Cooper). But he's also extremely positive, cheery, and independent- as opposed to Cooper's rather delicate, easily irritated, and very needy nature as an infant. If you put Grant down in the bed while he's tired, he'll usually coo and giggle for a while, then whine and grunt, and then fall silent- sleeping. If you put him on the couch to look at the world when he's fed and calm, he'll sit there for almost 15 minutes, just gripping the edge of a blanket and watching things go by. Cooper wasn't capable of that kind of poise until he was about, oh, 18 months.

But lately, something new has cropped up. Grant is a thumbsucker. It is hilarious to Matt and me. We had no idea how incredibly intense the need to thumbsuck could be. Grant loves it to the extreme. Last night, he sucked his thumb HARD for almost 45 minutes before falling asleep.

We've started doing sort of a rakish half-swaddle to allow Grant his thumb. His right arm is still pinned down hard to his body by the blanket, but his left is free to indulge in thumbsucking. And suck he does. This morning he sucked the life out of that thing, eyes screwed shut, otherwise peaceful, for two hours. Unreal.

I do realize that there is the potential for me to be pretty unhappy with this habit when he's about three years old. But whatever. It is very clear to me that he needs his thumb. Cooper never gave a second look at his thumb- it held zero appeal. Grant though, he's got a buddy, and it is his left thumb.