hard not to compare

Yesterday I took the boys to the playground. While I was there a father came with his daughter and young son. He let his daughter, who appeared to be about 4, go over and play on the big playground and brought his son over to the small playground.

I had the boys on the small playground, as Blake can play on the equipment there independently. The father asked me how old Blake was and I inquired about his son. His son was 16 months. The father then proceeded to tell me he was concerned because his son was not talking much and his daughter could talk at the same age. I told him the boys are a lot different than girls. I also told him that at 2 Blake still had a limited vocabulary. This seemed to help the father, which sort of surprised me. Yes, if he knew I was an educator it would make more sense that what I said was reassuring, but just taking the word of a stranger baffles me.

Anyway... this scenario got me thinking about my own two boys. As much as I understand that each child progresses on his/her own time frame, it is still hard to not look and see what Blake was doing at this same age. It is hard to not look at Colby and think... hmmm seems like Blake was "older" at this age to me. I know that Blake did a lot of his physical developmental milestones early, but that doesn't stop me from wondering why Colby isn't meeting them at the same time frame.

Colby just turned 7 months on Sunday. He can sit rather confidently, is trying to scoot, loves to rotate in circles, rolls stomach to back and back again, can pick up toys and switch them from one hand to the other. He is beginning to hold his bottle on his own, walk when held up by an adult, stand with the support of furniture for longer periods of time, and sit unsupported on his ride-on toys. He loves to babble and says "mama" "dada" and many other babbling sounds. He loves to laugh and smile and blow raspberries.

The challenge is at this same age Blake could go from laying to sitting on his own, began to crawl, had teeth already, had learned to pull himself up to stand, could pick up small foods and put them in his mouth.

I am not concerned about Colby, don't get me wrong... I watch him learn more and more everyday... what I am concerned is that my little guy is missing out on something that I am not giving him. Was I able to do more for Blake because there was just Blake. Did he progress faster because he had more one-on-one time? Is there something that I should be doing with Colby that I'm not? Even looking at things as simple as sleeping the boys are so different. I knew when I was pregnant with Colby that he was going to be different from Blake... I just hope that I'm not doing something to interfer with Colby's progress and it is just the differences in their personalities and dispositions that is creating the differences in developmental progress.