Spiders and Snails, Sugar and Spice

What are little boys made of?
Spiders and snails, and puppy dog tails,
That's what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice, and everything nice,
That's what little girls are made of.

Babies are unusual creatures, aren't they?

Theoretically speaking, most of us erroneously assume that babies are all mostly similar, with identical basic needs and desires, since personality development takes place a bit later. Or at least that's what games like Sims would have us believe :)

Makes me wonder sometimes since contrary to popular expectation, my niece and my newly christened nephew seem to have such wildly contrasting personalities that they could have been born in different families - possibly even on different continents. Kinda like my brother and me.


Raoul doesn't mind a bit of rock and roll all night
Had the opportunity to bond with my lil nephew Raoul today... and the cute, cooing fella couldn't be easier to take care of. Perhaps it's true that men are far simpler creatures easier to please, since hand the baby boy his bottle of milk and he's happy as can be. Apart from minor complaints when he's not being carried and petted, Raoul made nary a peep, smiling shyly to himself as he batted away at his soft toy mobiles.

Unlike my tempestuous niece Carmen who since the day of her birth, insists on making her royal presence felt :) Certainly no need for an alarm clock when Carmen wakes everyone at the crack of dawn with her urgent summons. Even her regular milk feeds back then seemed something close to the WWF Smackdown as the rebellious litle revolutionary railed mindlessly against perceived authoritarian injustice.

Of course like every little girl, when she's good, she's really really good. So good that butter wouldn't melt in her rosy little cheek.

But when she's bad.... Well, she has monstrous unsociable periods that we've lately termed her PMS episodes. Even now despite her petite size - and her surprisingly feminine ways ( pink bows and frilly dresses of her own choice shockingly! ), Crabby Carmen terrorizes her playschool with her daily list of demands, threatening to shriek down the shaky rafters otherwise - or else incite minor toddler mayhem by pelting other bratz with her ever-ready ammunition of Lego bricks.

Of course my conveniently amnesiac mother claims that she had two perfect little children who never caused her a moment's trouble. Much as I would like to claim that I was the perfect Stepford child, I doubt I could carry such an untruth for long. neither could my brother. Like every other doting parent, believe her agile mind probably blanked out those horrible unspeakable moments of toddler terror in a moment of mental preservation some years back.