As I eluded to in my last post, I gave birth to my second child, my daughter Julia in January. While I can’t say life is easier with two kids, I’m really enjoying things a lot more this time around. I’ve found that it’s not only possible, but easy to love another baby as much as your first child. I’m also lucky that after a tough bout with reflux with my son, my daughter is reflux free and….(mostly)EASY.
Yes, I said it, and if you don’t have an easy baby, I know you hate me as much as I hated all moms who toted their smiley cooing babies around while my poor son was crying in discomfort. I also know now that while I’m definitely wiser about some things the second time around, I just had two totally different babies (with exception to sleep…they were both decent night sleepers, bad nappers!).
While some people would like to attribute all good (or bad!) characteristics to parents, I don’t think it’s that easy. Of course I’d love to take all the credit for my kids’ good qualities (and find a way to blame the less desirable ones on someone or something else!), but I don’t buy it. Our role as parents is hugely important, but I also think that there is just a “you-ness” about each of us that is hard wired and part of ourselves that isn’t going to change. For example – ever since my son could speak, he requests on a daily basis to run around the house. “C’mon mommy, let’s wun awound!” I hear it every day. Believe it or not, my husband and I didn’t ever “wun awound” the house before these requests…Oliver just knew he needed to blow off steam and energy, and running in circles around the living room made sense to him. This isn’t a learned behavior – he’s just a really physical, active kid – it’s just so very OLIVER.
He was a tough baby, his sister is a breeze by comparison. While I used to spend hours trying to get him to nap, she’s usually out in a few quick minutes. My back was sore every night from carrying him around the house to stop crying. More than two years later, my back is still sore, but it’s from carrying that same baby (who is no longer a baby!) back to bed for the thirteenth time!
This time around, I am wiser in some ways that make parenting easier, but in most ways, I just have a baby who is far more comfortable, and far more easy going in her nature. There are moments when I feel she’s not getting as much attention as she should because her “squeaky wheel” brother is getting so much. But she’s happy, and while she doesn’t get as much undivided attention as he did, I’m also trying to savor small moments with her more than I did the first time around.
I don’t say all of this in an attempt to encourage pigeon holing our kids into restrictive labels by the time they’re three months old. It’s probably dangerous to hang onto these descriptors for long. (No one wants to be a teenager with a mom resentful that she was a colicky baby twelve years ago!) Rather, I believe it’s important to realize that even if we parent multiple kids exactly the same way (which we probably won’t do – we learn so much as we go along, that it would be silly to make the same mistakes twice!), they’ll still be totally unique, and we can appreciate them for who they are rather than trying to change them.
If you have a tough, spirited, colicky, whatever you want to call it kind of baby that isn’t as easy going as all your friends’ kids, know that you didn’t do anything wrong or bad, and keep on loving them as they go through this rough patch! Chances are good they’ll still turn into a really cool kid!
