Acceptance

I have been challenged in the last 3 months by this little wonder. She continues to confound me. For some time now, I have been g's mom. I have come to know her and mother her appropriately. Now comes s and I thought that somehow since I have "mastered" g, that s would react the same way. s soon disabused me of that notion. I have fought the obvious for these last 3 months, reverting to many of the things that have worked for g. The latest issue has been s's eating (or lack of eating to be more precise). Aside from spitting up almost every time she eats, she is a challenge to feed with a bottle. She takes an average of 2 oz each time. Her daily average (the time that I am away at work ~ 10 hours) is between 5-8 oz. g's daily average at this age was around 12 oz. g never spits up. Whatever she ate always stayed in. No such thing for s, who spits up as part of her daily routine. Like a worrywort that I am, I brought her to the doctor last week to get weighed, fully expecting that they would tell me to start trying to feed her slabs of bacon. But no, she was fine. She gained about 1 1/2 lbs in the last month, bringing her up to a weighty 11.5 lbs.

Something happened then as I was trying to wrestle her back into her clothes. Her sister was already 12 lbs by this time, maybe even a little more. But she was not her sister. s will be her own person, a thin person but her own person nonetheless. There are some small benefits to being her own baby. She loves to sleep during the day when her sister hated all sleep at any time. She prefers to nurse and has become a champion nurser. Nursing in a record 10 minutes was enough for her.

So a note to all the mommies thinking of the second - mothering the second is much like mothering the first. For the first few weeks, there will be floundering and much confusion, but the clouds will one day part and it'll finally become a little clearer. Though like the weather, clouds are always gathering. Nothing is certain. We sort of make it as we go along.