Sun Mote Copse Starting from zero got nothing to lose

They were so small, Bronco wasn't sure exactly how they could move around. He watched them, for a few moments, enamoured by their very existance. He looked up to see his mother smiling at him, and he went to smile in return- but realized he already was. 

"What...Do they generally do?" He asked. 
"Eat, sleep, poop, puke and cry," His mother answered, honestly. "They need body heat; they can't go far from me, or your f-" She stopped herself, bewildered by how oddly simple it was to associate the birth of one batch of children with the birth of her previous litter- regardless of who their father was. They were all hers. "Phox." There was a silence between them for a few moments. Bronco felt slightly uncomfortable that his mother had nearly called Phox "Your father" to him. Weakly, she sought to remedy the blunder. "Baby brain. It's a real thing." She said as a lame attempt at an excuse, which puzzled Bronco who had no idea what that meant. 

The pups seemed to sense that something was different, and he watched as one of the twins stirred, lifting her head, whch she then pointed in his direction. "Woah!" he exclaimed softly, but as soon as his fascination was piqued by the puppy that seemed interested in his presence, the pale one began to cry. He tumbled to the side as his sister moved, and Bronco winced- even though a puppy who could hardly raise itself couldn't really fall far enough to hurt itself. He fretted as the wailing continued- though his mother sighed softly, and reached over to try and soothe the wailing boy with sweeping licks of her warm tongue. 

"Is he...OK?" He asked tentatively. 
"....He always cries," Came her tired response. She caught Bronco's worried reaction and shook her head. "Some babies just do. He's...Just difficult. And some babies don't...Thrive, like others do." She said, with some trepidation in her voice. The girls had had what she had seen as being fairly regular problems- aside from the bee sting, which had been traumatic enough. But they did everything she knew pups did, regularly...But her little son did not seem to be thriving as much as the girls, and it worried her. She wasn't prepared to potentially lose a puppy. 
"He'll be OK though, Mom," Bronco offered, though there was a frailty in his tone. He willed the boy to stop crying, to start eating or do something that indicated that he would grow and develop and thrive just like his sisters, but there wasn't much he could do aside from watch his mother tend to her worrisome child.