Never in a million years did I think that I would have two completely different children. When I found out I was having another boy, I imagined another little Aston, calm, sensitive, a little bit shy, particular, interested in always learning and very clean.

When Will was born, he was the best baby, he slept the night through from as early as 6 weeks, I could take him anywhere, he would sleep when we were out and about and hardly cried (a far cry from what Aston was like as a baby- he was a pain!). Then, we hit a stage at around 8 months when we noticed signs of rebellion, signs of messy play and signs of, well not Aston. When Will started to walk, I knew then an there that this child was like no other, well, not like Aston, this child was his own person, a new personality for me to learn about and a new challenge for my husband and I to face.

People often wonder how I lost my baby weight second time round and apart from eating right and going for walks, I lost it because I was never, ever, sitting down. With little ol’ William, there was never a dull, or relaxed moment when he was awake. I was always chasing him around the house, stopping him from putting things in his mouth, saving him from potential broken bones and confiscating objects out of his hands.

Unlike his big brother who preferred to play indoors, draw, learn his numbers and alphabet, build lego and use his imagination, Will prefers to be outside, play with balls and balloons and has an absolute obsession with water play, he is always wet, he would find water in the Sahara. As this personality began to shine through, I started to roll with it, understand it and embrace it, I can’t get enough of this wild or should I say fun child. Through the hard times of tantrums which I believe were due to the fact he couldn’t communicate and had re-occuring ear infections resulting in having grommets put in, he came through the other side of tantrum-ville and brought life into our house hold.

The is never a dull moment with Will, and although Aston stays clear of him during dinner time, when there is a puddle in the horizon or when there is a shovel in his hand, he loves seeing the crazy and funny things Will comes up with, says and does to make him laugh. You really can’t expect your child to be anything but themselves, you must embrace it, love it, nurture it and praise them. I leave you with one last little example before I head off to kinder pick up…

The other day, on a Thursday, when I have just Will, I thought I would take him to a toy store to buy him a present. I spoilt Aston like you would not believe when he was the only child, Aston would wear only Jacadi, Ralph Lauren and few other brands but Will gets all the hand-me-downs and cheaper brands. Ok, thats not where I was going with this, so, Ok, yeah, I would buy Aston anything, any toy he wanted so I thought I would spoil Will this day. We went into the local toy store and I told him to pick a toy, he looked around, we saw all the big name toys, some soft toys, some bath toys, big toys and he saw one of those spinny things that look like a rainbow flower and spins with wind and you hold the stick, like you get at the show. It was $2 (winning) and he said “Pay lady” so I asked him if he was sure, he said “yes, I want this one” so we walked to the register to ‘pay lady’ and by the time we got to the counter, the spinny thing (what are they called? someone tell me in the comments, I can’t think of it for the life of me!) was gone. He threw it to the ground and said “Let’s go home mum”.

What just happened? We survived a toy store, we walked out of the toy store without a toy, without a tantrum, without a “but mummmmaaayyy pleeeeease!”. You should have seen the shock, the happy shock on my face. He just wanted to get home and play in the back yard! I have never in my 5 years of parenting witness such a great result in what is usually a drag-out-door-by-arms scenario with Aston.