Hah! I feel bad for your wife (we did the horrible colic thing with kid1, too! Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy!), but it's nice to know we're not the only ones ;) Kid1 was late enough walking and talking that the pediatrician threatened us with a developmental assessment. Once he started, of course, he was unstoppable and went from first word to complete sentences in a few weeks. These days... eh. He's about as socially clueless as we are, and we do a lot of coaching to try and spare him the suffering we went through on that account. We sometimes have to remind him about not making repetitive noises in public, and he gets agitated when we make plans, and then have to change them. He'll be fine. Still, it was a bit of a shock to us when the younger ones turned out so normal! At the time, the popular theory was that it was *all* about genetics. Piffle, I say.

The colic thing, though... It happened with all our kids, just the eldest was the worst. By the third one, I figured out that if I eliminated dairy from my own diet, the colic went away! (and yeah, I still get a little miffed that *nobody told me about this* the first time around-- though I suppose it could be idiosyncratic with different moms/kids. Still, I'd have tried *anything*)