One-Uppers

We had these friends in Pensacola (don't worry - it's not you, otherwise I wouldn't put it on the blog) who were total One-Uppers. If we had a funny college story, they had a funnier one. If we had a good recipe, they had a better one. They once stopped me in the middle of cutting onions while making dinner for them because I wasn't doing it right. Then finished cutting them for me. The "correct" way.

Awkward.

Anyway, Jon and I really don't like to hang out with that sort of crowd, but the truth is, we're closet One-Uppers.

When we were trying to get pregnant it seemed that everyone else was getting knocked up and we weren't. It was frustrating, to say the least. Then Matt and Ann (our wonderful brother and sister-in-law) announced they were having a baby. Then we found out she was a girl. Paul and Kristyn (cousins-in-law) were also having a girl, so when we found out we, too, were pregnant, we determined to have a boy. If we were going to be last, we were going to be different.

He was a boy, indeed. So when Ann and Kristyn gave birth to two sweet, 7 pound something babies, we determined to have a larger one (note: I was thinking like 8 pounds).

Skip ahead to labor day. Not the holiday, but they day I was in labor for 21 hours and had a C-section despite it all. As the doctors were wheeling me into the recovery room and I was wondering if I was ever going to be able to move my toes again, I looked up to Jon's triumphant grin as he yelled, "TEN POUNDS, ONE OUNCE!"

Once again, we had successfully one-upped.

I say all that to say this: Sadly, Nathan has inherited our One-Upping Gene. Evidenced in the post about those Jeans.

When normal babies suck on pacifiers like... well... normal babies, Nathan sucks on the whole darn thing. At once.

Par example:
That is an entire Soothie pacifier, shoved all the way in his big ole trap.

He's pretty pleased about it, too. (Even though it appears that Henry has had enough and is eating his head.)

And if you were about to get excited that maybe that mouthful of Paci might be keeping some of the drool in, you needn't:
Drool always finds a way.

In fact, there's so much room in there, notwithstanding the paci, he started trying to shove some of my hair in too:
He is gifted. Not in intelligence or agility like his little girl cousins, who have hit all their milestones much before our lumberjack, but rather in boy things. Like showing off how very much he can shove in his mouth at once.

I'm going to be the mom who gets the phone calls in elementary school that my son is on his way to the emergency room with an eraser/rock/locker shoved up his nose.

And I'm going to regret passing on that gene.