Oh dear. Myles will be eight weeks old tomorrow. The transition to being a family of four has been a bit of baptism by fire. The first eight weeks with Myles have been so different than the first eight weeks with Ellie. The first eight weeks with Ellie were easier than anyone expected them to be. The ratio was two fairly competent adults to one baby. We did not know what we were doing, exactly, but we had had time to carefully prepare and even once she arrived, there was still a set of free hands not dealing with a child most of the time. I actually felt like it was possible to do a decent job of parenting. She had an outfit for each holiday. I sang to her and we read books to her even when she was just weeks old. There was still enough slack in our lives to bask in each milestone. I remember her first year with such sweet nostalgia. These recollections surfaced tonight when I played lullabies for Myles that we had listened to on repeat with Ellie. I remember how peaceful I felt, listening to those in the car as we drove to Shenandoah, Chicago and upstate New York, with Ellie napping peacefully in the backseat.
I do not want to belabor all that is different this time around. The pregnancy was more exhausting because we had a toddler in tow, because we were both older, because I caught the flu weeks before delivery, because we have now been living in a bizarre parallel universe in which Trump is president for two and a half years. The postpartum period was inexplicably and dramatically challenging for me. I am incredibly grateful for every healthy day; there were many weeks of very difficult days. And of course, in 2019, our brand new baby has a toddler big sister who is reacting to her world having turned upside down. But I still believe that we have many moments of sweetness ahead of us, oases amid the chaos.
Ellie has grown by leaps and bounds. She is in the 98th percentile for height and the 70th percentile for weight. She is incredibly articulate, communicating complex ideas in complex sentences. She is constantly singing songs we've never heard before. She is climbing the stairs independently, counting beyond ten, and negotiating like a pro -- whenever we ask her to do anything, she says, "please set the timer for two minutes!". There are letters she cannot say and pronouns she mixes up, so she says things like, "I want you to sit on my yap." She also cannot pronounce R, so green is just "geen." She has a raucous sense of humor and a full body laugh -- she finds certain things, like Mitch McConnell, inexplicably hilarious. She is in the midst of potty training -- we really have deferred to her mostly, letting her go at her own pace and rewarding her with m&ms -- blue ones, obviously. And she is now sleeping in her big girl bed. So many transitions. We went through a difficult time with bedtime -- she simply would scream and cry not to be left alone, for hours! A sticker chart, with the promise of French fries, seems to be improving the bedtime mania, so far. She is spirited, funny, and full of life -- a hearty kid who will eat all kinds of food, loves to dance and play with magna tiles, and is increasingly social with new people. But she has a sensitive side, too, needing more reassurance, especially recently. We are smitten with our lovable girl and she keeps us on our toes...
I hate to fall into the cliché of writing less about our second baby! I'll write first about Myles in my entry. My little guy, who I call Mylesy, is a sweet and gentle little soul. He loves to hear music. He is more sensitive to sound than Ellie was -- startles more easily and may even start crying when Zoe barks, which Ellie never seemed to notice. He has such a serene little face when he is calm, though. His features are more diminutive than Ellie's, I think. He is also much smaller -- in the tenth percentile so far, where Ellie was always in the 90th plus. Part of this is no doubt owed to his issues with reflux, which have been new to us. Despite his small size, he has been a pretty good nighttime sleeper. Like many babies, he enjoys being strolled outside. He is not overly fond of baths, but is nonetheless a good sport. For the early morning feeding, I exclusively breastfeed him, and we often snuggle in bed afterwards until we finally rise to meet the day. When I met Myles, all of my worries about how I could love anyone as much as I love E disappeared. I love them both beyond measure. There is no conflict at all between the boundless love for one and the boundless love for the other. I just hope that they'll adore each other. And that they'll adore reading and dogs, and be compassionate humans, and that they'll be happy and healthy, of course. And for our part, I hope that we'll be happy and healthy, too -- wise enough to not sweat the small stuff, to trust and enjoy the journey, to take the time to care for ourselves and each other. Sometimes it can feel like wheels are about to come off, but we are doing this thing. I do not want to wake up and thirty years and realize that I missed the majesty of it while I was clenching my teeth and gripping too tightly.
