BRIEFLY FOUR

So now, there were briefly four of us. By May, when Lou was less than eight months old, I had her in for a well-baby visit and the doctor said she had lost weight. I was only giving her breast milk and the pediatrician said,  is there any chance you could be pregnant?—I was. Andrew was on the way and Lou was quickly—too quickly, weaned. She never seemed to mind and while she did not like a rubber nipple, she took quickly to trying to feed herself and drink out of a cup. Lou was our go-go baby and could do amazing feats of climbing. Marnie had been very slow to walk and very tentative about the next step as she still is today. Lou charged ahead often at Marnie's direction to climb up to get cookies at great personal risk. As I got more pregnant with Andrew it became harder to keep up with her non-stop activity, but she was always a good sleeper.

I was just really getting into the swing of managing two kids when we found out Andrew was on the way. After his birth, he was such an easy healthy baby. Growing, developing and keeping up with his sisters. His natural athleticism and his above average height made it easy for him to keep up physically. He was easy going and slow to put his two cents in. When Andrew did come into the conversation, it was often with an intuitive observation. I remember once when he was about seven and I was going into to his room early in the morning to kiss him goodbye on my way to New York (more about that later). We had not managed to connect because I was just too busy to slow down long enough for him and me to talk at his pace. I asked him if he was depressed. He looked hard at me and said, "Mom, are you depressed?” That made me reflect and the answer I came up with was maybe an agitated depression