What is normal?

I remember not so long ago when I had my son, Owen, how much I looked forward to every doctor's visit to be able to tell them all the cool things that he had been doing.  How great of an eater he was, how he had surpassed any milestone they believed he should have reached. 

Owen was a relatively easy baby when it came to many things.  He was a great sleeper, ate almost everything you gave him, transititioned off of the bottle without even blinking an eye.  He even just "lost" his pacifier one day at daycare and never looked back.

Now with my Quinnie, I actually don't want to go to the doctor to find out what she is "behind" on this time.  Everyday, we make progress with her.  Yet everytime that I have gone in, it never fails, that all of the hope I had that we were finally get her back to "normal" I would find out that we're "behind" on something else.

I don't feel like I did things much differently with Quinn than I did with Owen.  The main difference was needing to make sure that she gained weight (where Owen had no concern with this!). 

I still believe that I'm a good Mom and that I'm doing what I can for my little girl.  We're playing even more with her now, working on signs to help with communication as she tries to pick up more on speech, taking more control with eating, but it is so hard with her not talking.

Each child can be so different and deserves to be treated as an individual.  I am confident that things will get better and better with time.  Yet as we get closer and closer to Quinn's next check-up (at 2 years in June), keep me in your thoughts please as I'm now the parent who no longer looks forward to "bragging", but I'm the parent who is constantly made to feel like a failure.