The New Girl

It's A Shame, Shame, Shame. It's A Damn, Damn, Shame.

I could make that shit into a song, you know?  I was looking back at the holes where the posts about my boy should be and whoa, it's a DAMNED SHAME. There is an EMPTY VOID looking back at me.  I fail at record keeping in all it's forms, obviously.

Anyway.

Wanna take a guess at how old my baby is now?

...

He's NINE MONTHS OLD. Nine.

(Can you hear the angels singing sweet, sweet music?)

(I can.)

At nine months old, we have officially exited the DREADED MONTHS of infancy, at least for me.  At nine months old, I think babies hit some weird peak of cuteness.  They are Adorable and still so...Innocent.  No ulterior motives, no real Knowing-Better when they are doing something naughty.  They look at you like you are the SUN RISING when you come into their rooms in the morning.  Plus, they start doing all kinds of cool things.  For me, this is when it starts to get good.

 

It's funny to me, because somewhere I have pictures of TLNG doing almost all of this same stuff.  When she was nine months old, the [bitter, horrendous screaming] colic/reflux hell was mostly over, so she was pretty sweet, too. 

It's so hard not to compare them.

I try not to.

He's generally a super-happy boy, with an incredible disposition.  Meaning, I can go almost anywhere and do almost anything.  Provided that he has enough 1) food and 2) sleep. (In that order.)

He says, 'mmmmmmm' anytime he's in the presence of food or drink or anyone eating or drinking.

You could die from the cute of that alone, trust me.

He's curious and once he figured out how to crawl [omfg, I'm so dead, yo] he was on that shit like it was his JOB.

I guess it is his job, though. So, GOOD WORK, KID.

He's also clapping and waving.

And smiling. A lot.

Oh. And he found the dog.

Just for kicks, here's a picture of my daughter at this age:

And the dog says:

'Oh, what the fuck. Here we go AGAIN.'

In case you're [still reading] interested in a comparison, here's my girl at nine months. Holy hell, it seems like yesterday.

In a way.

If yesterday was also forever ago.

Like Sands Through The Hourglass.

I hate getting mad at my kid The First Thing In The Morning or The Last Thing At Night.  It's not like I love getting angry at any other time during the day, but it seems especially heinous to get angry and/or deal with a red-faced, screaming three year old before my tea is even done steeping.  And, well, when my girl is going to bed...who wants to be mad then?  I don't want to be impatient, counting the seconds until I leave the room to go and finish what's waiting for me in the kitchen.  I want to send her to sleep with warmth. With love. And some measure of comfort.

***

Sometimes, the baby gets overtired and wired and has a hard time settling down to sleep.  And by hard time, I mean it takes more than the usual 2-3 minutes (literally, I KNOW) of bouncing on the yoga ball to put him out.  On those occasions, he doesn't fuss, he just wiggles, blows raspberries on my boobs, makes constant eye contact and busts into a huge-ass grin when I look back at him.  It's hard to be irritated at that, you know.  Even though the hard nights are still rarely, RARELY, more than ten minutes of bouncing and humming, I still feel restless, a little. Itchy for him to relax. Itchy to end my day.

***

These days, with my daughter, it seems that I am a Mostly-Full Cup of Irritation and it doesn't take but a little bit extra to have me brimming, threatening to overflow and make a giant mess all over the place.  There have been tantrums.  And hostility.  And tantrums.  And acting out.  And difficulty coping.  And...tantrums.  It's not totally clear to you which one of us I'm talking about right now, is it?  That's deliberate.  In my brain, my logical, intelligent, knowledgeable brain, I understand what she's going through, being three.  My brain understands the hard work of this difficult stage.  The pushing, pushing, [fucking nightmare] pushing against the boundaries has to happen.  The trying everything despite massive evidence that should dissuade, the freshness, the goofiness, the exploring emotions and options and alternatives--all of these are necessary. These are things that my brain knows.  But somehow, for some reason, my brain seems somewhat...detached from the process that usually begins with my daughter's ridiculous (and totally doomed) request and ends with me cleaning up the Irritation-Overflow Mess with a mop of my own regret.

***

When my son is wriggly and wiggly and can't get to sleep, I hold him extra tight.  I wrap him in my arms, like a human swaddle blanket, holding his head and chest snug against my body.  I hold him and bounce and hum 'Lullaby and Goodnight.'  He struggles at first and I hold, I contain.  I surround him, support him, make him snug.  When he strains against me, I hold extra firm.  And in about 35 seconds, his eyes close. And his muscles relax.  I feel the weight of him. The heft.  I hold his entire body in my arms. I bounce him for a minute or two more, looking at his sleeping form.  I realize that these days are numbered.  One day, he will be taller than I am.  He'll have whiskers and smelly shoes.  I look at him, quiet and peaceful, snuggled up against me and I ache for the day that he won't fit there anymore.  I try slow down and soak it in. 

***

When my girl goes to bed, she dismisses her father first and asks me to sit on the floor so we can 'Talk About Our Day.' I reach through the bars of her crib and stroke her hair or her soft, soft cheeks.  She sticks her arm through and we hold hands.  Lately, we talk a lot about the time outs or the times I felt angry during the day.  The things she did that set me off.  We talk about the other stuff, too.  The good stuff.  The fun stuff.  She wants me to stay a little longer.  I have to go and clean the kitchen, I tell her, when our time is up.  And when I close the door, in a hurry to get the rest of my work done, I think about how these days are numbered too.  The days of tantrums and irrational requests meant only to provoke and test, the days of three will give way to preschool at four and then movies in the theater with popcorn at nine, and then, before I know it, to driving her friends around at seventeen.

***

When I'm all the way done and the kids are both asleep, I think about them.  I miss them.  The idea of them has a spectacularly lush quality that can sometimes be lost in the day to day life that is caring for them.  But these days, one after the other, are gone.  Past.  So, I try to remember that.  I try not to be so itchy.  I try to empty my cup and do my best to slow down.  To relax against the snug restraints of this day to day life.

Supply And Demand.

If I ever pen a memoir on my experience of being a mother, the title is going to be, 'Motherhood: Who In The Fuck Knows?'

Because, SERIOUSLY. WHO in the fuck KNOWS what's going on with this gig?

Not me, apparently.

When people tell you that the experience of parenting one kid has NOTHING to do with how you parent another, they are NOT PLAYING.  The ways that my two kids are different are numerous to the point of [insert the symbol for infinity here.]  And, indeed, the early indications are that the way I parent The Girl will have some overlap but may be quite different from the way I parent The Boy.

But if there was one thing I counted on being the same, perhaps naively, it would be my abundant boob-milk supply.  With my first kid, I had such a crazy over-supply that it took 10.5 (TEN AND A HALF) months for my supply to regulate. Initially, it was the same with The Boy.  (He ate so much that my supply regulated in mere WEEKS.)  He latched on immediately and ate a ton and gained a ton and other than some Thrush, we had no difficulties.  At his four month well visit, he weight about 19 pounds.  Off the charts for weight.

I started to notice some frustration from him a while back, when a let-down wouldn't come fast enough, but I just thought he was getting bigger and wanted a faster boob.  He slept through the night early (for us) and I wondered whether or not that was going to effect my supply. The Lactation Consultant didn't think so.  But then my baby sitter told me last week that The Boy ate 5oz of milk during the time in which I only pumped 2oz to replace that missed feeding. 'Hmm,' I thought.

He was cranky at night and during the day and although he nursed frequently, he was fussy. He protest cried at being taken off the boob at night.  He woke at night after an hour of sleep screaming and crying.  I thought, 'Q: Teething? Cold? Development?'  (Of course, A: WHO IN THE FUCK KNOWS?)

And then, the next day, the sitter told me that while I was out getting my hair done, my kid took SIX OUNCES of milk.  When we hadn't even missed a feeding.

That's when I weighed him.

Fifteen pounds.

I weighed him again, just to be sure I didn't make a math error.

Fifteen pounds.

So, I started watching him closely. The letdown took a long time and he was only sucking and swallowing for a few minutes.  He protest cried when I took him off the second side at bedtime. So I gave him another ounce of expressed milk in a bottle AFTER he ate and he sucked that shit down, like, 'FINALLY, motherfucker. Fi-na-lly.'

I panicked and went to Target that night. To get starter foods, some brown rice cereal and I looked at the formula.

Formula!

(P.S. I don't think it's Devil-Juice. I just never thought that *I*--font of milky abundance--would EVER find myself looking in that aisle.)

(P.P.S. I also had NO IDEA how many kinds there are. Or how costly it is.)

If you follow me on Twitter (I hate that 'Follow,' yeesh) you may have seen my frantic plea for help regarding a diminishing milk supply.

[If I could do a screen capture or whatever, I'd put it right here. Imagine it being 140 characters of OMFGOMFGOMFG...no milk!]

The response was immediate and helpful (except for a few smart-ass tweets about praying to trees for help) and I'm on my way.  It seems to be working, if quicker let-down and no protest crying when taken off at night and sleeping without waking to scream from hunger are any indication.

Oh, MAN, guys. 

I was STARVIN' MAH BEBE.

So, yeah.

Apparently, I'm still a rookie.

[Edited to add: Today, before nap, The Boy breastfed and then took, oh, FOUR ounces of expressed milk on top of that. So, uh, looks like I'll be going out to get that formula this afternoon. {Sad Trombone}]

Quite Right.

He is red-faced screaming and I am bewildered.

Tired?

Start bouncing and ear-piercing screams mean, 'Uh. NO.'

Hungry?

Latches on, eye rolling, screaming ensues. 'NO.'

Gas. It must be gas.

I give him two doses, back to back, of gas medicine and walk him around, patting his back. 

He quiets. Gives two little burps.

I bounce him and he whimpers.  His eyes close and he's asleep in 6 minutes.

The bewilderment at the crying makes me realize [just how fucking soft I've gone] how little he actually cries. How predictable his needs and how soothe-able his distress.  Since I wrote the post about the horrible, sleepless, [post-partum brain-fuck] angst, we went to the GI specialist.  We had a change in medication.

And I have a brand-new kid.

He smiles and giggles and coos and makes raspberries and has a social cough.  He eats every 3-4 hours in the daytime. And, get this: he's been sleeping through the night. And I'm not talking about the *6-hour-stretch-from-7pm-to-2am* that the BABY BOOKS pretend is 'sleeping through the night.' I'm talking about a solid, uninterrupted 10-12 hour stretch. Without crying or eating. AT NIGHT. Pardon my whisper.  I haven't wanted to tell you.  I haven't wanted to talk about it, think about it or BREATHE A WORD OF IT.  And I'm not even superstitious. 

I'm that amazed.  You could knock my ass over with a baby sock.

Seriously.

I find myself wondering just who IS this ginormous, happy, sweet, sleepy baby?  I also wonder what I would think of New Motherhood if this boy, this temperamentally rhythmic, predictable, good-natured boy, was my first baby. Or my only baby.  Wow. I can't even begin to imagine how different my perspective, my take-away would be.  The Man said, 'We'd have three more by now.' And while I think that's a huge exaggeration (I still hate being pregnant, yo) the sentiment is one that I understand. 

My daughter, my fire-filled, mercurial, girl child. She gave us a tough row to hoe.  A bonfire into which we threw our expectations, our assumptions.  And the blaze imprinted itself on my ideas about and my experience of new motherhood. Singed it.  Left it smelling smoky and a little dangerous. 

Don't get me wrong, there was lots of love forged in that fire.  But let me be honest and say that it was a site at which there was a trial. You know the kind.

Or, maybe you don't.

I'd like to think that if my boy had been my first or only, that I would still have as much empathy, compassion and understanding for the woman I see with the caterwauling infant and the distant, dazed-senseless look in her eyes.  Even easy babies are demanding, after all, there's no denying that. 

It's just that...I don't know. I'm not one of those people who believes that you have to have had the same exact experience as I have to understand me, to really get what I'm saying.  Your mom may be alive and well, say, and you still GET that my loss was tremendous. Pain is pain.  I'm saying that even if you've had easy babies, I still think that you can understand.  Mostly. (You'll never hear me say that condescending, 'Oh, you wouldn't understand.')

It's just that there's something about the experience of parenting one so tough that makes parenting one this easy a little...jarring.  I can't explain it better than that.  At least not yet. 

I know that some of you get it.  And I know that some of you have been there too.  I can still smell the smoke on your clothes. (Don't worry, it's faint.)

And The Man has taken to calling him 'The Gentle Giant,' which does not meet with 100% approval from me. 

You can guess what I call him from the title of the post.

Or maybe you can't, Whipper Snappers.

Unconditional Acceptance.

I had an encounter with a patient today that shook something loose in me. This happens sometimes. And while you're not privy to her issues or our discussion, you are privy to my reactions, if I choose to share them.  And the reaction that I had to this patient was the urge to be an Accepting Kind of Mother.

It was as if the center of my chest opened up like a vault and I felt my heart inside, grow. Inflate. Become bigger, Bigger, BIGGER still. I wished for it to be big enough to make room for whatever and whoever my daughter* is becoming. Whoever or whatever she wants to be or discovers that she is, through the unfolding of her life.

I want my mother heart to be roomy enough for my kids to be comfortable, to make a cozy home in my chest, enfolded and protected there, knowing that no matter who they are, no matter their interests, their predilections, their beliefs, their choices--that I will accept them as people.  That I will respect them as individuals who can and must choose for themselves what to make of their lives, even as they are living them.

It might surprise no one to hear that I believe myself to be a pretty accepting person.  If my daughter came home with black nail polish and blue hair, or facial piercings and Secular Humanist literature, or a Chihuahua and a girlfriend, I can imagine clear and easy acceptance of all those things, despite the broader societal-norm bending. 

On my car ride home, though, as I was congratulating myself for my own yet-to-be-tested flexibility in mothering, I had this thought:

But, what if she came home with a kid who was a bigot?  Or if she found some strong and fervent religious beliefs? Or she wanted Midwestern Hair?

For me, personally, those would all be tougher pills to swallow, really.  Harder tests for my flexible acceptance of her person-hood and her choices. Taking myself out of the equation would be much more challenging in some situations, many of which I cannot even yet imagine.

I have very little to no doubt that my children will be secure in the fact that I LOVE them no matter what. But I also want them to understand that I will also do my best to ACCEPT them unconditionally.  That I will try to always stand by them, to support them and assist them to become who they are and who they are meant to be.

Because that is what I truly believe most kids and young adults want and need from their parents.

I just really, really hope it doesn't include Midwestern Hair**.

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*All this goes for my son, too, obviously. He's just so..UNDIFFERENTIATED still.
**My apologies to Mom101 for lifting that with my sticky fingers but THAT was some funny shit.

Updates And Such.

* The Company responded quickly, with a Sincere and Concerned voice.  There was an apology from the Quality Control Officer and replacement toys. There was also a UPS 'Call Ticket' issued (I had no idea such things EXISTED..am sheltered) and I put the toy in an envelope and sent it to her for 'investigation.' She said there is extensive colorfastness testing and I believe her and so I said that I wanted to hear back from them re: the investigation and then I would be happy to tell all the other moms I know (which means all of you, OBV.) that I am happy and satisfied, despite the initial situation. We'll see what happens.

* I didn't mean for the whole thing to have a top-secret feel but at the same time, I wanted to keep from shooting off at the mouth about the toy and the company in a totally negative way to the [hundreds] thousands of people who read this blog. Being at Blogher for Hashtaggate, influenced the way I feel about things like that--increased my awareness.  I feel like they deserved a fair shake, initially, anyway.

* I took The Boy to the GI specialist and it worked out SUPER WELL. I have to say that I had some trepidation about the meeting b/c the night before, The Man told me a story about a woman he knows who took her baby to a GI specialist and he advised her to stop nursing and start formula.

[Aside: before I talk about my feelings on this topic and people feel bent or hurt or like I'm judging--in case you don't know me at all, allow me to set the record straight beforehand--I have absolutely NO judgment regarding what you feed your own children, except for maybe arsenic or something (but even then, in small doses...) I mean to say, I seriously DON'T CARE. I don't. I have no inner *feelings* about whether or not you nurse or bottle feed or a combination of the two.  I have no *issues* with it and I really, truly, seriously COULDN'T CARE LESS. Okay? For REAL and for TRUE. Go with love, rock on with your bad selves, et. CETERA.]

[2nd Aside: I should say, that even though I don't care what you feed your kid, I really do care and feel upset WITH you if you had the situation of being told you needed to switch if YOU didn't want to.  I think that would suck.]

Anyway.

I don't personally want to stop nursing and start formula and my inner voice whispers, 'that's not really going to help' and although the Dr. has all the education blahblah, I still probably wouldn't listen to that advice but it would still make me uncomfortable to go AGAINST medical advice and then I'd have to go get another opinion, etc, riga-ma-role, etc.  And so, I was RELIEVED when the doctor was thrilled that I'm breastfeeding and turned out to be a breast-feeding advocate and so, it was a good match, is all I'm saying and it made me feel lighter and happier and more hopeful about our situation. He also doesn't like to call it Reflux b/c it is just an immature closure at the bottom of the esophagus and it will mature and then all this will stop and I knew that but it was still nice to hear.

* He also changed the medicine from a BITTER MINTY FLAVOR (what the FUCK is with that, Baby Meds?) to something brand name ($2 more for me) but cherry-ish and The Boy is actually taking it into his body, instead of spitting it all over ME and so it's doing some good.  And (crosses fingers) it's actually WORKING (knock wood.) He's sleeping better and laughing and cooing and he's just, well, he's adorable, really. That's what he is and it' nice to feel THAT way for a minute.  So far, it's the best $2 I've EVER SPENT.

* I'm mildly irritated when people say the year 'Twenty-Ten' instead of 'Two Thousand and Ten.'  I am aware that I have to get over it, though, because it's here to stay.  I know it.  It's going to be 'Twenty-Eleven' and 'Twenty-Twelve' and basically, until I die, people are going to be saying the year this way.

* I was also annoyed (way MORE annoyed, really) with people who said the date of the attack on the World Trade Center as 'Nine-One-One.' THAT SHIT didn't even make SENSE, yo. The date was the ELEVENTH. Not the 'One-Oneth.'  Apparently, I'm still not over it.

* I am reading The Help for The Best Ever Book Club and I really love it.  I am finding it hard in a way, though, to be LOST in the world of the book and then RESURFACE into my own life when duty calls.  When the kids wake up or need something or whatever.  I'm all like, 'Just ONE MORE PAGE...' and it is a little challenging in that way.  It's nice, too, to be reading again.

* I have started to exercise again.  I'm trying.  I made The Man pull the treadmill out into TLNG's  play room in the basement so I can see the TV (till we get one in the gym room.)  My goal is to get COMFORTABLY back into my old clothes again, before the end of this year.  I'm thinking that's realistic but it's going to be slow going, I think. I'm WICKED out of shape.

I Swear, I'm Not TRYING To Be Birth Control.

'I don't want him. I don't even WANT him. And I don't want to be here.'

Even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I know I don't mean them, not really. But they feel good to say in those deep, dark, moments. I feel the swell of a giant wave coming to crash over me and keeping in the bitter words feels like trying to hold back the sea.  Not unlike the adolescent fights I had with my mother, yelling hurtful insults that I didn't really mean, like spitting so much bile. Now, as then, the horrible words and the inability to keep them in, serve as a gauge.  A pressure gauge. And I've been under a lot of pressure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My boy started out easier than his sister.  His reflux presented and was treated early.  He slept at night (OMG) in two chunks, each 3-4 hours, and even if I had to work to get him back to sleep, he'd go back down and stay asleep until the next feeding time.  About a month ago, though, his sleep started to erode.  Eventually, he stopped going down at night. Stopped sleeping almost all together, except in short, fitful bursts.

His 'bedtime' eventually landed at about 3am, where it stays now.  Any effort to put him down before that results in instant waking and screaming of indefinite length (let's just say that he can go longer than I can stand to listen.)  And this pattern has left me with less than 3 hours of sleep for 4 consecutive days.

My delicate constitution wasn't made to run on so little rest. Things start falling apart.

He is scheduled to see a pediatric GI specialist on Friday and I am hoping that with a better handle on his reflux that he might feel better and sleep better.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Even while it's still dark, when he smiles or latches on or finally falls asleep, when the wave has crashed and it pulls itself all the way back, I curl in on myself, around him.  I put my lips to the top of his fuzzy head and I weep. And I feel so small.  Smaller than he is.  This little guy, this beautiful little guy, who would be a gift and a joy to anyone. To you. To someone who would enjoy this rapidly passing time, the way a mother should.  To someone who does better on limited sleep. To someone who could better handle the pressure.

And I know that those thoughts (the ones underneath, the ones making all the bile to spit, the ones that are much harder and less satisfying to say) are no more true or fair than the others. I know it. I know. 

And I also know this: when he sleeps better, so will I.

Then The Crazy will go back to wherever it hides and it will take The Crazy Talk with it.

Until then, my pregnancy-contemplating friends, don't listen to a word it says.

Just look here:

Meet Squeaky McSqueakerton

His cry has been like this since he was born.

No shit.

I could hear them wheeling his wailing, squeaky self down the hall and the nurses made fun of his *little cry.*

It's only 31 seconds.

Because any longer than that and you might start to [lose your will to live, like me] laugh at a crying baby. And that shit just ain't right.

The Apocolypse Is Nigh. Or, Maybe I'll Just Say Fuck It And Go To The Library.

The past week or so has been, how shall I put it?

Um.

TOTALLY FUCKED.

How's that?

My panic(ish) feelings about taking an infant out into flu season had curtailed my activities already, when both kids came down with colds, leaving me [to defend myself against The Crazies] inside, alone, with two [albeit small but still ferocious monsters] uncomfortable kinders.  Combine that with bad weather and mix in a few post-partum hormones and you have a perfect cocktail for [a one-way ticket to the loony bin] some serious Life Dissatisfaction.

And yesterday, was as close to a Parenting Nuclear Holocaust as I hope to get.  As in, I almost did a 3 Mile Island and Melted The FUCK Down. I ended up smacking myself on the forehead (no vases, just my open palm) and gripping-slash-shaking the towel rack on the back of the bathroom door, mainly to keep myself from throwing something heavy against something breakable. 

(Here's where we separate the 'normal' wheat from the 'slightly overwhelmed chaff.'  Hey! Why are you backing away from me??)

It has been intense, mainly because of the perfect storm of events that have converged to totally screw the life (and behavior) of my poor toddler.  Shall I list?

I shall.

She's 2 and a half (which, by the way, can suck it.)

She's cutting 3 molars.

She has a cold.

She is developing even MORE speech (which I didn't think was possible.)

She can climb out of her bed now.

And, there's this:

She is just figuring out, I think, that The Boy isn't going anywhere.

Here's what most people don't tell you about the whole 'Adjusting to a New Sibling Crazy.' Sometimes, there's a delayed onset.  Everyone asks the question, 'How's the big sister doing with the baby?' But they ask it right after the new baby arrives, when the first born is still [in fucking SHOCK] impressed with the newness and littleness of the [latest toy] baby.  And in the time it takes for the big sister to realize that the little [bother] brother is here to stay, the sleep deprived parents have put a big, fat 'check' next to 'Adjusting Well.'

Whoops.

So, we have Weepy, Uncontrollable Crying Jags over Nothing. We have Hysterical Outbursts over previously and consistently experienced and understood limits. We have The Sassy, The Fresh, The Mean and The Whining. (THE WHINING.)  Some Potty Accidents. And oh, guess what? The Hitting is back! 

And there is something new: Difficulty going to and staying in bed. *sigh*

She's a good sleeper.  She has always had minor sleep regressions with every major cognitive jump.  A week of crying at bed time or early awakening.  But this has been the mother of all of those. Up screaming (for more! lip balm!) before she falls asleep.  Climbing out of bed. Up super early.  Last night, she asked if she could sleep in my bed. Never, ever before has she asked that.  Never has she ever slept there.  *sigh* It's exhausting.

Yesterday, I had the all-day cranky, wouldn't-sleep-any-other-way baby in the sling, when TLNG wanted to be held.  She was weeping about something else and wanted me to hold her.  I tried an awkward sitting on the couch, cuddling her while trying not to dump my son out of the sling, and she finally said it, 'Take this sling off, Mommy. Take it off and hold me.'

So I did.  I put the boy in the swing (risking the rise-and-scream that he'd been doing all day) and I picked up my big girl, who is not really all that big.  I swayed with her, burying my face in her neck, while she was draped across me, whimpering head on my shoulder.  I rubbed her back and murmured that I know it's hard to have a little brother who gets so much attention.  That I know it's hard to share mommy and daddy and that she's doing a good job.

And she is.

It's hard out here for a Mommy.  And for a Big Sister, too.

Two Months.

Here he is at two months, my boy.

I find myself studying pictures of my girl from the same age, to compare the two of them.  I'm not sure why, exactly.  I'm looking for a resemblance, I suppose.  Looking for the traits that link them together and to me. 

It's a hungry feeling, poring over the pictures of my girl. My first baby. I organized them by month, you know.  Each month, the changes are recorded there.  Looking at the curve of her cheeks, the toothless grins, it's almost like I wasn't there with her, like I never saw her at those ages.  I imagine that mothers of adopted children might feel the same way when seeing pictures of their babies before they had them in arms.  But as she grows and changes, hair half-way down her back, lengthened limbs and thinned out face replacing all the bald, chubby, round cheekiness, what I'm left with is my Swiss Cheese Memory.  And those pictures.

And now I have another one.  I'm doing it all again but unlike the first time, I have a built in appreciation for how fast it goes and how easy it is to forget things like drooly chins, neck cheese, tiny fists full of fuzz and shirts covered in spit up.

So, I look at the pictures of The Boy to see how alike (or different) he is from the only other experience of mothering that I know.  To see, feature by feature, what makes this little stranger part of our pack.

 

.

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The biggest difference with two kids is this: I can no longer organize the pictures by months.  Because the pictures (just like this post) feature BOTH kids. The curse of The Second-Born. So, the filing system no longer works (without a degree of fussiness to which I could only aspire--if I aspired to such things.)  Which, turns out, is a pain in my ass, seeing as I won't be able to go back to find pictures of my boy at two months without doing [a Google search for this post] fucking math.

The Double-Cute eases the pain, though.

In almost every case.

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(Isn't this picture just BEGGING for a caption?)