Saturday, February 2, 2013

Musings


This is just a quick, disjointed post of random thoughts.

I wanted this second child to be a boy. She is not. I worried (worry) about raising a daughter because of my own tumultuous relationship with my mother. Now that she’s here, I feel a little better. Perhaps I can keep the mother-daughter anxiety at bay until she hits middle school and the shit hits the fan.

I really thought this baby would look like A. She shares some characteristics – I see A in her nose and eyebrows – and her resemblance to her brother is growing as she does, but she is also her own person. Sadly, the time when she most looks like her big brother is when she is so soundly asleep that her tiny mouth drops open. With her eyes closed and her mouth agape she looks like her stillborn brother whose sweet mouth would not stay closed.

Like all babylost parents with their Rainbows, I often think how different it would be if A were here too. As hundreds of questions run through my sleep-deprived brain (When to introduce a bottle? How do we treat her crusty eyes? When will she sleep longer stretches?), I feel resentful. If A had lived, we would already be seasoned parents. We would know the answers to these questions and have loads of experience under our belts.  I also contemplate how challenging it would be to have a toddler running amok while trying to tend to a newborn. Seriously, this tiny dragon is wearing us down. I don’t know how we’d be able to manage a 15-month-old on top of this; but I still very much want him here.

4 comments:

  1. <3 It is weird that you've already been a parent for 15 months and you've been worn down by the love of A, too. But you're facing the challenges of parenting a living child for the first time. Yeah, it will kick your ass. Nearly every step of the way, in one way or another. Enjoy it as much as you can.

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    1. Suzanne - your straight talk made me smile. :) Thank you.

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  2. I think it is really sweet that little sister looks like A when she is sleeping so peacefully.

    It sounds weird, but a drop of breastmilk in each eye seems to clear up ickiness in a couple of days.

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    1. It doesn't sound weird. I've been doing the breastmilk in the eyes for a couple weeks now, along with massaging her tear ducts (which was terrifying the first couple times - really? You want me to press near her tiny eyeballs?!). The goop seems to wax and wane. I'm trying to avoid antibiotics, but it has been a couple weeks. We'll see what the doc says at her 1-month checkup this week.

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