Deja Vu......Didn't We Just Have a Baby????

This is Eli. (Excuse what we refer to in the extended Siswick family as his Wilbs) This is Eli's natural state. He's not a conventional child, he's not a conventional anything. During a recent viewing of Jungle Book we realised he is a Man Cub, a child who appears to have been raised by wild animals. Despite all our best efforts to encourage him otherwise.Six months after Thomas was born we decided it'd be a good idea to attempt to enlarge our family once again. (At this point we still had some faith in the doctor who told us we'd never conceive naturally so figured it'd take a while as it did with Thomas). So I found out when Thomas was 7 months old that he was gonna become a big brother in 8 months time. We imagined the new addition to be just like Thomas, laid back, calm and nice to cuddle.

I should have known this was no ordinary baby when half way through pregnancy my lovely straight locks started growing as curly hair in random sections never to recover. (Though he has the same hairdo and it suits him perfectly).

The new addition arrived on May 24th 2006 weighing 6 pounds 9 ounces and immediately he looked just like Thomas. Days passed and we soon realised this was a very different child we were dealing with. We joke that Eli is what you get when you mate a monkey and a rhino. The kid is pure hilarious. Loves to make people laugh and totally knows he is funny. He has a pout to rival Posh Spice when he's not getting his own way.

Eli is also a biter (which is 100% Rob's fault although he would never admit it). He is also ultra lazy, deciding to not walk until he was 16.5 months old. So this is where the biting came in handy for him, if someone annoyed or frustrated him he'd wait til they were passing by and clamp his little chompers on whichever appendage was closest. Thomas of course became his numero uno victim. I didn't mind so much when the biting was confined to our family. One day when he was about a year old I took them to the playgym. Eli was playing on a slide trying to climb it from the bottom up when a girl his age went to investigate. They seemed to playing quite nicely so I was quietly basking in the glow of how wonderfully sociable my one year old was. Suddenly I heard a scream and knew the biter had struck. I made it to the slide at the same time as the girl's mother where incidentally the girl was sitting at the bottom not letting Eli climb, this is what activited the frustration reflex, (ok so thats not a rational reason to bite someone but at least the attack wasn't unprovoked). I expected a bite to an appendage as was the norm but no, I guess girls are God's ultimately annoying creation to Eli cos he'd taking a lovely big bite out of her juicy cheek. No bleeding but already a big bruise appearing. Of course I felt like the leper of the local mothering community. I was now the one of the mothers I judged for having kids that had inexcusable behaviour. (When Thomas was recently bitten on a play outing I was perfectly composed telling the mother that these things happen and no permanent damage had occured so no need to feel bad, pre-Eli I would've reacted very differently indeed).

Needless to say there was no mention baby number 3 when Eli was 6 months, in fact we're still coming to terms with the man cub addition now.

Good job he's so cute or we'd have put him on ebay by now!