Babyhood lasts for the first ten years of a smurf’s life.
They were delivered, all 98 of them, in the span of a year. One at a time, the only exceptions were Clumsy and Brainy - they were delivered during the same stormy night, only a couple of hours apart. Papa was not prepared for the surprise baby (Brainy, aka Baby Number 77).
With the number of the babies growing, Papa, who was all on his own, resorted to turn to magic in order to be able to keep all of them alive. First of all, he casted a spell on himself, so that he could stay awake for days and still be in his best form, and required less self-care to function. (Combine this with the change in his magic to suppress the little ones’, no wonder he aged more rapidly than he should have.) Moreover, he found a spell for the babies too: with that, they needed to be fed only once in the span of a week, thus to be changed too, yet they still grew properly. It made taking care of them way easier. The only exception was Greedy, despite the spell, he needed to be fed daily, the adorable little glutton he was.
The spell is the reason Lazy is so “lazy”. He is the only one, who has lingering side-effects. Due to being unexpectedly sensitive to the spell, he got permanently slowed down as a result, the effect never truly wearing off, even after they grew into smurflings and Papa took it off them.
When they were 3, the babies got sick, one by one, affected by a mysterious disease. Papa had to call three of his magic-wielding friends for help, ‘cause he didn’t know what caused the problem and he was panicking, terrified he’d lose the little ones. It was a close call, but they found the reason behind the illness, and managed to solve the problem before it was too late. No babies were harmed in the process. Or so they thought. (Details later, in a fic.)
Only a few baby smurfs were named in babyhood, their traits so prominent Papa didn’t hesitate to assign them names: Hefty, Handy, and Greedy. Though Papa regretted the last one, he should have waited and named the smurfling “Chef” instead, but the old name stuck by the time he came to the conclusion.
HCs and traits about some of the smurfs, when they were babies:
- Hefty was the first to reach milestones in physical development. The first to start crawling, walking, etc. By the time he was 8, he could lift any of his brothers with ease, which trait earned him his name. Controlling his strength took him a longer time to master, though.
- Handy was the first to perfect those physical milestones, especially the fine motor skills. He was tinkering before he could speak. As a baby and a small smurfling, he was very attached to Hefty. He cried for him if the older one went ahead, calming down only when Hefty crawled back for him. He got fussy and couldn’t sleep well till he was placed next to his brother. As a tiny smurfling, Handy was really shy. He often hid behind or clung to Hefty when feeling uneasy or nervous, but later on gained confidence.
- Brainy was the first to learn how to talk coherently, and read as well. Once Papa realised what’s the problem with him and got him glasses, he caught up with the others really fast.
- Greedy was an absolute unit of a baby, a cute little chonky one. He was the first to return Papa’s smile. Always happy, and fussy only when he was hungry, perfectly cuddle-able. Papa loved to carry him around, even though he was quite heavy. Despite his size, he was really gentle, even as a baby. The younger baby smurfs loved to sleep next to him, they always settled when in his presence.
- Jokey was an exceptionally cuddly one. A mirthful baby too, only cried during thunderstorms. Papa loved his laughter, his little giggles of pure joy.
- Poet had a habit of curling up into an adorable, frog-like foetal position while being fed, held or picked up. Papa had no idea why he did that, but he was so adorable it managed to make him smile every time, no matter how tired he was.
- Vanity loved shiny things from early on. Papa learned quickly to put everything out of reach after he had to fish a chunk of silver out of his throat.
- For a long time, Tuffy could crawl only backwards. He was backing into corners with great confidence, and with his space restricted, started screaming right after till he was turned to the right direction. Fun times.
- Hunter only rolled around for some time. He had a hard time learning how to crawl, but could roll onto his stomach/back early on, thus this was his way of moving towards his goals.
- Tracker learned to speak the language of the birds sooner than smurf. He was often outside, and chirping around before Papa knew it.
- Timid almost died in his sleep one night. It was a rough day and most of the babies were fussy, Papa hadn’t slept in 4 days and he was stressing so much. Dreamy, who was a calm baby otherwise and shared a cot with his younger brother, started crying so desperately Papa decided to check on them and discovered Timid wasn’t breathing. Scared out of his wits, he picked the baby smurf up and Timid came to himself from the jolting, and started crying right after. It never happened again, but Papa sure aged centuries during that time.
- Scaredy had separation anxiety, so Papa needed to carry him around almost nonstop. He was calm when with Brainy, though, which gave Papa some time to rest.
- Grouchy didn’t talk till he was 25. At first Papa believed he is mute, till the day he surprised him and everysmurf else, when he stated out of the blue: “I hate lily-roots.” (Papa was making lily root soup for dinner.)
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