Wednesday, February 08, 2012

The Easy One

The Ladybug is my easy baby.

There.  I said it.

I didn't want to jinx it by comparing, but it is hard not to.

And being my easy baby doesn't mean I love her any more or any less than the 'hard' one that came first.  In fact, I am finding it means I love them both that much more.

Sure, a lot of it has to do with not being a first time mom - there is less of the unknown; I am not learning to be a mother at the same time my baby is learning to be human; there's less anxiety over what comes next...

But a lot of it has to do with her temperament.  In fact, several times I have caught myself thinking about the friends I have who had babies around the same time I had Little G. We all had our ups and downs, but looking back, I felt like I had to lean way more heavily on others to get through the many, many down moments.  I felt like I must be doing it wrong or not appreciating it as much as everyone else because I seemed to be struggling so much more than anyone else.  Now that I have my 'easy' baby, I think to myself that if all those other mommies had babies like Ladybug while I was struggling with Little G, it is no wonder they didn't relate to me.  Seriously.  The difference really, truly is night and day.  Now, I'm not saying Ladybug is a breeze...but she is so laid back and so calm and so...what I thought babies were supposed to be.

I am well aware that there are still many years ahead of us and I hope to continue to be mindful that the assigning of one of my children as hard and the other as easy can wreak havoc on them should we start to expect them to remain in those molds.  So I am hoping to make a concerted effort to not focus on this major difference they have.

But still.

Many times before having Ladybug, I found myself sitting in a corner - defeated yet again by a situation surrounding my spirited, intense son.  Many times I was encouraged with words describing him as my 'hard' one - that were I to have another, parenting that second child would either be easier or the same - but definitely not harder.  I never let myself believe that.  Instead, I tried to convince myself that I must be doing it wrong.

I am glad to know I've been doing it right all along.

Ladybug is my easy baby.  Little G was my first.  So I must thank them both, for teaching me to love the other even more than I thought was possible.

5 comments:

  1. This is so interesting. My first one has so far been very easy. I was actually expecting much worse. I hear (and sometimes see in person!) horror stories of screaming babies, 6 month olds who still wake up 3 times a night, babies who whine all.day.long. My little guy - he is a piece of cake. It makes me a little nervous to have number two! It makes me happy to hear that you still went ahead with a second baby after a difficult time with Little G - gives me hope that I'll survive even if I have a difficult baby.

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  2. Love, love, LOVE this post. This is exactly how I am feeling right now too. Thank you for articulating it so beautifully!

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  3. It's funny...before I had children, I read a blog of a woman who had her first son and then a spitfire little girl.  I remember reading her blog and thinking, Dear Lord - may I PLEASE get an easy baby!  I have to say though, once our son was born, we only had a sampling of one, so we didn't really know that we were dealing with anything more challenging than the next kid.

    I would like to think that were we to have our easy one first, having the 'hard' one second would be slightly easier anyway since all of the we're-new-to-parenting variables would be gone.

    Regardless, I am so encouraged by the love I have for both of my children regardless of their temperament

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  4. Thanks for stopping by, GIH.  We're gonna have to get our kids together one of these days.  

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  5. It's been forever, but I just wanted to say that this is completely me with my two little ones. E was the hard one, and first time parenting is a learning curve as it is. I thought I'd have more children, but she made me think one and done for ages. And then P came along, and I saw so much of the stories my mom would tell about me as a baby. E is much more me, and P is more of my husband, and there are definitely days I feel defeated. I'm thanksful miss spiritied was first and got our full attention, because in comparison, little sister is all about enjoying babyhood. I scarecly remember it the first time around.

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