Plus One

Three infamous blogging mamas are having babies s-o-o-n. With their new babe, the number of children in their homes will double.

I remember going from one to two all too well. My oldest, Belly, was just over the age of 2 when I went into the hospital to have my next child. After having a successful VBAC, Fairly Odd Father and I took turns holding Jilly in our arms as we watched snow fall outside our window that March morning. It fell and fell until the roads became impassable, and we were marooned in the hospital with our new baby.

It was luxurious to be able to relax with a newborn without having visitor after visitor arrive, but this also meant that my firstborn, who had never spent a night away from me, was now separated from us for even longer. She knew we had a new baby, her baby sister. I wonder if she thought we were going to go and live with this new baby and leave her behind?

The following day, when the roads were cleared, Belly came bouncing into my hospital room. My first thought was, "Oh my. She is SO big! How did my (first) baby become so big?!?!" It was a huge moment, one that I can still feel in my chest when I recall it.

That was more than five years ago. Since then, I have added yet another to our brood, but he came so close to Jilly (they are 18 months apart) that there was little time for reflection. I do remember holding the pregnancy stick in one hand, a nine-month old baby in another and saying, "How can I be pregnant?!? Jilly is still a baby!!!!!" And then I giggled hysterically, because, really, what else can you do?

One reason for writing this post is that we blogging mamas (and dads) are to give these pregnant moms some advice about having two kids. I'm going to stray from my comfort zone, which would be to give them some very practical advice, and write about something I've observed about myself in these past few years.

One thing I've had to be careful about is this: labeling my kids. Knowing each of my children is a unique person, it is too easy to assign them with a role in our family. I see this done a lot in other families too. One child is the friendly one, the other shy. One child eats everything, the other nothing. One child is 'musical', the other 'sporty'.

Jilly is our spaz who says hilarious and inappropriate things; Belly is social, talkative and loves to sing; D is the quiet, reflective one.

Except when they aren't.

Things in my brain rearrange a bit when Belly hangs back in a new setting and clings to my leg; when Jilly stands up and sings loudly and seriously in the front row of a children's choir; when D starts talking up a storm. They are alike and they are different, but it isn't so much stark black and white as it is a swirling pattern.

As siblings, my hope is that they will stand on their own but will always have another that is so familiar to them that they are never truly alone.