Cry Me a River

This blog could probably be a continuation of the one I wrote the other day regarding the differences between the boys. I remember when Jacob was born, I thought it was so fascinating how he would cry around the clock to be fed, changed, held, etc., yet no actual tears ever came out of his eyes. He would receive vaccinations from the doctor, yet even the pain of having needles pierce his delicate baby skin was not enough to provoke tears.

So the weeks and months passed, and still Jacob would "cry", but he never cried tears. Then, on November 24th, 2008, his seven month birthday, it happened. I don't even know what upset him exactly, he had been happily playing in his Exersaucer and the next thing I knew, he was crying. I went over to him, and to my astonishment, huge alligator tears were pouring down his cheeks:


At the risk of sounding uncaring, I will tell you honestly that I started smiling, (and snapped the photo above). I was a proud Mom - my baby was crying real tears! It felt like such a huge milestone in his life. Besides, even in his sadness, he was still super adorable.

Ryan on the other hand, cried tears on his first day of life. It was such a switch from Jacob, I could hardly believe it. Ryan cries very easily to this day. In his defense though, he gets picked on a lot, being the younger sibling. Most of his days are spent struggling to keep a hold of whatever toy he is playing with that Jacob is trying to steal from him. Jacob rarely cries tears, they usually only appear when he gets injured. Instead, he likes to do what I call a "fake cry", he lets out a "Wahhh wahhh wahhh" sound, scrunches up his face and rubs his eyes, so it looks and sounds like he is crying, but there are no tears. This typically happens when he is not getting his way (imagine that in a two-year-old!), like when I turn off Baby Einstein, put him down for a nap, or tell him, for the hundredth time in one day, that we cannot go outside.

So I just spent a good chunk of time going through our photos looking for a picture of Ryan crying to include in here, but apparently, since it wasn't anything special for him to cry tears, I guess I never took the time to snap a shot of it. I did notice however, while looking through the pictures, that while Ryan may be easy to cry, he also is very easy to smile, so I offer this photo instead: