Second Child Angst

Dear Ellie,

I know that you’re not getting as much coverage as your sister did those first few weeks of her life.  On the one hand, you’re probably going to be glad, when your prom date stumbles across this blog, that I didn’t take as many pictures of you in the bath.  But on the other hand, I understand that it’s going to look a little lopsided.

But rest assured that it’s not.  And I’m going to take this few minutes while your sister is off at a library story hour with your grandmother, and you’re enjoying a lying on the floor, kicking your legs and looking at owls, to write you a letter telling you what you’ve been up to.

You’re getting to do all the things that she did, if not more.  You’ve been to the playground more times than Margaret went in her first year of life.  You’ve been to the zoo, and the Botanical Garden.  Mostly you just sit in the sling and sleep, but you have been on lots of adventures.  We don’t have as many pictures of what’s going on, because we have fewer hands these days.  Not actually fewer hands – neither your father or I were in any sort of industrial accident or anything, but we have more to do with the hands that we have, and we haven’t managed to grow any more, even though that would probably be a useful evolutionary development.

But one thing that you have that Margaret didn’t – and I think this is important – is a sister that thinks you’re pretty neat.  She always wants to hold you and touch you and play with you.  She brings you toys to look at, and chucks them into your bed for you.  When you cry, she says “poor Ellie,” and looks sympathetic, and if I can’t make you stop right away, she tells me that you’re mad.  She does tummy time with you, lying on her stomach on a blanket next to you, showing you how to roll over.  And she says that she loves you.  She’s constantly tabulating your fingers and toes, and marveling that they’re so small.

And she brings you flowers.

Anyway, you’re almost seven weeks old, and (as I would record in your baby book if I had any interest in a baby book beyond this blog) you’re turning into a little person.  You make happy cooing noises now, particularly when you’re on the floor.  You like looking at the underside of the lamaze flutterbug we’ve got attached to the handle of your carseat.  You pretty consistently sleep from 9 until 3, and some nights you go until 5.  This means that your mommy is a much happier person than she would otherwise be. 

You’re being tormented by a cold at the moment, but you’re getting better every day, and even when you’re sick and snuffly, you don’t do much more than look affronted when you cough your pacifier out.  Though you’re actually strangely good at coughing around the pacifier, so that’s a good skill to have up your sleeve.

I think you’re starting to smile at me, though I ‘m not sure.  I’m usually smiling at you, so I don’t know whether you’re responding to me, or whether it’s just an expression that flits across your face.  More research is clearly warranted before coming to a conclusion.

Anyway, you’re pretty wonderful, and I’m sorry if your life is not being documented in painful detail.  We’ll get there.  Particularly when you get big enough to fight back a little, and I can leave you to defend yourself while I go and write for your fan base.

But for now, I’d better go pick you up, because the stuffed owls have lost their charm.

Love,

Mommy