Second Children

Sweetpea when she was a newborn.

“Meevle-effle-flumpf,” Sweetpea said yesterday. I have no idea what it means, but it sounds advanced.

When Sweetpea was born, I worried that I would not be as good a mother to her as to JellyBean. The time alone you get with your first baby is unrepeatable. Every baby after that must share you. I worried that I would not bond with her the same way I did with her sister. It did not help that Sweetpea was a colicky baby. Until she was almost four months old, I knew how I would be spending every evening after six pm: holding my crying baby. She was miserable. I held her in the glider, rocking back and forth. I laid her across my knees and rubbed and patted her back. I snuggled her into my chest and sang to her (she preferred the loudest and schmaltziest songs I could muster). All of it would work briefly, but nothing really satisfied her. Eventually I discovered that the colic came if I ate any chocolate, even a single oreo. If I cut out the chocolate, she was much happier.

She has been my most independent baby. When she started baby food, she refused to let me feed her. Either she did it herself, or it wouldn’t happen at all. Except for the pains of colic and teething, she is a serene child. She does not display her emotions dramatically like her big sister, but maintains a general equanimity, and smiles mostly with her eyes. Oh, those peaceful eyes. They melt my heart.

Of course, I love this baby to distraction. My worries were just normal, silly mother worries. And my worries neglected to consider how wildly Sweetpea would love her older sister. JellyBean is a celebrity to her. Right now they are supposed to be napping, and instead JellyBean is chattering and jumping in her crib, making Sweetpea giggle. Sometimes this goes on for an hour or more, till Sweetpea gets too tired to stay awake. If JellyBean makes too much noise after that, Sweetpea grunts at her in surly old man noises: “Noisy kid! Go to sleep!” Only it sounds more like “Eeerrrrghh.”

I remember feeling scared and overwhelmed when I was pregnant with Sweetpea, wondering how I would manage two children. And it has been hard, especially in the beginning. JellyBean was too young to be left alone with her sister even for a minute, and interacted with her mostly by shoving. They both wanted to be carried at the same time. One crying would set off the other one crying. And two kids in diapers is a special kind of sensory experience. But even in this chaos, I love having sisters. I love the chatter and the giggles and the double cuddles in my lap. It’s still not easy, but it’s joyful, at least on a good day.

And doesn’t everybody live for the good days? It’s enough.