I keep saying that it’s going so much better this time around than last time around.  I think S is a different baby than M, there are many circumstances that are different, and I am just different too.  I think the first time around maybe you don’t really know who you are.  Or you think you do, but who you are is totally transformed when who you are is instantly defined by someone else and who you are to that person.  Immediately following the birth of my first daughter I didn’t feel like me at all. I literally felt grief for the life I had left behind.  Most of what I used to define myself was changed in that instant. The me I knew, the relationship with R that I knew, even the way I physically felt in my own skin, it all had changed so much. And this time around, I know who I am and adding another child to love to that mix doesn’t change who I am, it just further defines me.

I know so much more now than I knew then.  I know that the infant stage doesn’t last forever and that I need to enjoy her curled up sleeping on me, as I now have to beg my two and a half year old for hugs. In mere months (hopefully) we’ll all sleep all night again. I’ll survive going back to work, even thrive in that environment and the challenge it brings to our lives.  I know I’ll cook again – I already am. I think of all the things I did between M’s birth and now.  Once again there will be evenings where I don’t have to rush to bed because I know I’ll be getting up again soon – I’ll enjoy drinking tea and sitting on the couch, I’ll take up hobbies and yoga again.  And I’ll get to do it all with TWO little girls in my life – so exciting!

S update – almost 4 weeks old and weighs 8 pounds, 1 ounce.