You can tell a lot about a kid’s personality bright and early in life.

Bun, my oldest, was rash and obstreporous even in the womb, tumbling and kicking and trying to have things her way from the very beginning [1].  She was born about the same way; starting right around her due date, flailing away through a couple of days of labor and a very difficult delivery, before coming out, taking a deep breath, and taking a nap.

And she’s approached most of the things in her life that way.  When she was a baby, she started trying to get up on her feet early; she stumbled and flopped and banged into things and, finally, lurched into standing more or less by accident.  And when she saw people around her talking, she didn’t bother with being perfect at it; she started babbling away almost immediately, and left the “figuring out what Bun is saying” thing to us for the first few months.  Potty training?  Same deal; months and months and months of almost, until the pieces fell together.

My youngest, Zam was just the opposite.  He watched his sister walk for month, before slowly hauling himself to his feet and…well, walking, with pretty decent coordination, without a whole lot of drama.

Zam, was just the opposite.  Potty training?  It felt like he waited until second grade (he was really only three, but when you’re waiting to change that last diaper, time loses some meaning) – and then, pow.  Done.  From poooey diapers to hitting the seat pretty much overnight, when he was ready.

Talking?  Zam watched, and listened, and clearly was churning the whole concept of “speech” over in his head for months and months.  Until finally, one day, when his mother said “would Zammy like a ba-ba?” Zam looked at her and replied “Yes, Mother, I’d very much like one; go a little easy on the heat, though, I don’t have an azz-BEST-toast lip”.

And before he was born?  Same thing.  Zam was very quiet – disconcertingly so, after Bun.  It made me nervous.  And he was two solid weeks late when he was born, when the plopped out after eight relatively placid hours of labor, as if he didn’t want to come out until he was really, really ready.

Just like with the bathroom, fifteen years later.

But for all of  his calm, patient, studious deliberation, which which he’s approached so many things, from learning to talk to learning the guitar, Zam certainly has not gone slow with one thing.  The eighteen years between 12:15AM on Feburary 4, 1993 and today shot past like they were hardly there.

Anyway – Happy Birthday, Zam!

[1] I bet Janet Napolitano calls me a “potential pro-life terrorist” for saying conception was “the very beginning”.  I’ll keep you posted.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, February 4th, 2011 at 12:10 pm and is filed under mitch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.