My Brother

When I arrived at the hospital to visit, I immediately noticed his face was flat and pudgy. He didn’t open his eyes, but after the next few days he eventually opened one eye to peer out at all of us, looking at his family for the first time wrapped in his little blanket in his cot.
We called him Anh Vu.

Anh Vu changed quickly over the months, and in the first few, being able to roll him over and being strong enough to stay there was a milestone. His hair was wispy and surprisingly soft for a boy, and his eyes were large and doe-like. When he started laughing, he laughed a lot. Anh was a very happy baby at times.
When it wasn’t those times, he fussed greatly and could wail loud enough to wake the dead. At times he was hard to deal with and I remember his screaming in the middle of the night. Miraculously, I got used to it no matter how loud it could be and it didn’t disturb me after a while. But that was his charm, and he still was a very chubby, cute baby.

He picked up walking actually quite slowly, since he was a little scared but when he finally mastered it he ran around quite enthusiastically. Anh was very attached to both his parents and didn’t really like anyone else. In fact, he panicked when in another’s arms or at the doctor, or when looking at a lot of faces. He was very cheerful otherwise. Anh found new ways to keep himself entertained as the days passed by, but when we first bought him toys he was quite dumbfounded- he didn’t understand what to with them, but one thing he enjoyed was nature and animals. I remember Anh chasing birds and squashing ants as one of his first forms of entertainment.

When he started speaking, he wouldn’t stop. Learning the alphabet, after having trouble with the first few letters, was a breeze and he started speaking in baby talk all the time, unlike I supposedly was when I was a baby. He knows basic one syllable words and can understand things we tell him (sometimes he can’t mimic them himself, though) and speaks rubbish a lot with a big toothy grin on his face. Anh was outgoing at home, but was actually quite shy with people his age and could be silent when playing around one of them. It was okay, though, because he could still keep himself company. Anh is currently in my room flicking the light switch above my bed. He gets excited over small things like being able to feed himself and press a button, but perhaps those are important things for babies. When Anh cries, it’s very extreme and he scrunches his face in an ugly manner. And he’s also a mischievous baby lately, doing things to get us mad because he thinks it’s funny. He always looks at us when he does something he know is wrong (like push stuff off a table and eat random things). Lately, to get himself in trouble Anh will either blow a slobbery raspberry or take off his socks and start chowing down on one.

He’s a tricky baby, but I wouldn’t ask for any other brother :) and it’s so exciting to watch him grow so far.