*Boom* Hello, Other Shoe

So for the past month I've been feeling this weird dread. It's the kind of dread where you're afraid it really means that something is going to happen to one of your children and you'll look back and say, "I knew it. I just had this feeling."

Ben is a very smiley guy. He's also a pretty fussy guy, and sometimes he manages these two moods at once. There's just something about him that makes people comment on him. I've had more than one used-and-haggard-looking person comment, "Wow, he's smiling at me. Babies don't usually smile at me."

Anyway, I've just had this feeling that there's something special about him. But my fear was that that meant something bad. My greatest fear, of course, was losing him. I feared for him in a way that I didn't fear for A.

So I was talking to G. and thinking maybe I should go back and visit my therapist to talk about where this anxiety was coming from. Was it left over from the birth trauma? Was it just my fear of things going well? Why did I have this feeling that something bad was bound to happen soon?

Never made it back to the therapist thanks to our divergent work schedules. Did make it to Ben's 10-month well baby check today, though. I brought up my concerns regarding Ben's lack of pulling to stand, or any horizontal movement whatsoever, and his constant abdomen crunches. He's always been stiff, but we've been assured that everything's fine, up until now.

"He pulls himself up?"
"No."
"He gets himself to sitting from lying down?"
"No. Not even close."
"Hmm. You know, I think we'll go ahead and request a neuro consult. Could be mild CP."

I'm sorry....what? Cerebral Palsy? Like what Karen had in the Marie Kililea books? The braces and wheelchairs?

I've since done enough googling and e-mailing to have a very different view of CP. We don't have a diagnosis yet, but both G. and I believe that he had more injury at birth than we realized.

I think my gut was right - but my gut also tells me that whatever it is, it's mild and more of a challenge than a disability. And if this is the other shoe, OK, I can deal with it. Please just let this be the other shoe. And let there be only two shoes. And let there be only one pair. And I've strangled the hell out of that metaphor but I think you get what I'm saying.