You are no less special because you are second.

Instead, it’s cliche-true that you completed our family.

I look at your bright smile and feel compelled at gut-level to gently nuzzle you as you laugh, or hold you serenely as you nurse.

And I do nuzzle you—but not often enough because your big sister has needed me for some other big-kid problem the entire time you were nursing. Also, you climb down off of my lap the second you’re finished breastfeeding to play with her, so there is significantly less opportunity to gently hold you anyway.

I held your big sister as she slept on my nursing pillow because my primary concern at that time was letting her sleep and holding her. You, however, are second.

It’s true that you were forced to cry in your crib to sleep. To be fair though, honey, I don’t personally believe in crying it out and, even if I did, you prefer sleeping in your crib anyways, because you toss and turn while you slumber.

I have so many important things to say to you that I can’t get them all out—my head is moving faster than my fingers are typing.

It’s also true that because you’re second, your baby book doesn’t have those cute little notes that reflect each thought as I had them about your teeth appearing for the first time or your first steps.

These things are no less special to me because you’re  second.

Actually, if possible, they are more unique because, even though I’m an identical twin, I realized for the first time how truly different people are, as I watched you do the same “firsts” in completely your own way.

At first, I’ll be honest, I compared you to your big sister.

I asked, “did she do this that early?” or “doesn’t she have that same look on her face?”—and then I stopped.

I ceased—even internally—wondering how you did things as compared to her because I had fully begun to appreciate how special you are, although second.

Yet your baby book sits on the buffet table behind the nicked antique dining table, where I type. It sits only barely filled out and—each week!—I tell myself this will be the one I go back and remark at what you did, in writing, in your special book to grow up and keep and look back on.

I loved looking at my own baby book as a ten year old.

I loved looking at the surgery scars from my hernia repair in old Polaroids taped to somewhat crinkly pages. I loved touching the hardened plastic of my newborn hospital bracelets and I loved seeing my mom’s beautiful “teacher” cursive as I perused it.

Your baby bracelet is in a Ziplock bag with the one I wore after having you, in one of the boxes from our move a few months ago. Even your birth was quick and felt over too fast—a half an hour elapsed from parking the car to holding you in my arms.

I hope you know that you are loved no less than my first born, or find untrue proof of this in your book not happening  in “real time.” Further, I hope you have a book to even read.

Because the reason your book isn’t done is simple, although it still feels awful—it’s because I was there as you went through your firsts.

At times, I dashed for my phone to hungrily snatch an image to keep. Others, I did this for your dad who was at work. Often times, I ignored my phone and experienced the tender yet prideful swell of my mommy-breast as you did all of your firsts.

And your first tooth? I was trying to survive—I’ll be real.

I was trying to get through a day when I had slept very little the night before and I had a busy-you and a busy-older-sister too.

I will say more to you than, “You are no less special because you are second.” I will meaningfully add on that you are my first child who reminds me more of me than your dad. (I swear your big sister is Daddy in pink glasses.)

I will offer as well that you are the funniest person I know, besides your big sister. I feel like a total asshole in saying this, but give me a chance.

I had you four years apart from your sister because I wanted more than a sibling for her—I wanted you.

I wanted you in your baby form. I wanted you and the no sleep you brought with you. I wanted your firsts and I knew they might likely be my lasts—I wanted to be able to enjoy you as a sister to my oldest and also as the person who you are, but I’ll admit I’m overwhelmed with joy when I see you already laughing and playing together, with her.

You are quite a person.

You seriously are hilarious and—even funnier—your 11-month-old self knows this.

You are my full heart when I go to sleep and you are the smile that I want to wake up to.

You are different and more unique than anyone I know and I love you not more or less than your older sister, but as you.

I love you.

And your baby book? It’s currently, as I suggested earlier, behind me, in a basket on the buffet. Its incompletion does not reflect my complete heart. Alternately, I am here with you—I am trying my damnedest every day to appreciate you and your brand-new’s as they happen.

And I’m sorry that I had more time on my first-time mommy-hands to experience your big sister’s firsts and document them, but I wouldn’t change anything about our experiences thus far.

Okay—I might want to note in perfect print the ridiculous look you had on your face as you tried banana—for the fifth time because I could not believe you didn’t like it (at all).

I would note the way you puffed up your baby chest as you walked backwards before most kids even walk forwards. I would, even more, like you to know that it’s all mentally jotted down and hopefully outwardly shared before it’s lost.

I’m afraid it will be lost.

But, if it is, know that it was for love and not for lack of it.

The post To My Second Child: Why Your Baby Book Isn’t Done. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Her heart spills sunshine from every nook and cranny.

She is the epitome of love—the fabled girl with a golden heart, filled with beauty and, more importantly, a well of true kindness.

She sings from her soul, as she creates different shapes and story gestures with her tiny hands—making diamonds with her index fingers and thumbs; opening and closing her tiny fists for stars.

She breathes beauty—seeing the best in people and the world—and she exhales joy and verve.

Her smile makes my heart stop and her gracious, grinning eyes make my own water. She stares deeply into anther person’s face, sometimes grasping it between two small palms, and she observes the souls of others as some people do wrinkles and make-up.

I’ve witnessed the judgment already present in other kids of her age and, in her, I see none. She’s thoughtful and serious—at times, I can see her depth of thought written on her lowered eyebrows and her gently puckered mouth—but it’s not with the same needless—and thoughtless—discrimination that is so easily witnessed in humanity of all ages.

She reaches for my hand and pulls me towards her. I kneel down to hug her and she softly kisses my lips. And then she looks at me and smiles and she’s off playing again—she has no idea of the love that she has swelled within my fragile mother’s breast.

Tears trickle down my cheeks.

I think of how much I would pray, if I believed in genuflecting for what we want instead of for simple gratitude, for her to grow healthfully and happily while remaining so humanly honest and sweet-natured.

Life brings all people sorrows and challenges, but, as my husband reminded me last night, the biggest liability is a bad attitude, and that, I can’t see her possessing.

How gorgeous the world would be if I saw it through her tender but curious eyes.

And it’s not childhood—I remember being a child, and I was not this way.

And it’s not lack of trials—she’s already had her fair share.

And it’s not my good parenting—this is inherent within her being.

But I will go on loving this soft soul that’s been so generously lent to me while I’m here. I will continue helping her thrive in all the ways that a mother is able.

More, I will benefit from the affectionate generosity that’s been gifted to me in my own life, in the form of a cherubic little girl, for the rest of my days because one secret of parenthood, perhaps not so well kept:

They will always be our babies.

Photos: Author’s own.

The post She Will Always Be My Baby. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Well, today didn’t exactly go as planned.

My not-feeling-so-hot daughter stayed home from school this morning, nixing my own plans.

This isn’t the biggest deal. Rather, it’s more of a stringing series of happenings that seems to be building upon one another regularly—and haphazardly—much like the Legos that she and I played with yesterday.

(Exhibit A—Lego Proof:)

(

So, that happened.

It was awesome.

I digress.

Here’s what didn’t happen: a visit I was looking forward to, a yoga class my body needed—and that my spirit needed more—and, most importantly, a mother’s heart is never truly at ease when her child is out of sorts.

And yet.

And yet the two of us aren’t usually the kind to mope—or mope for too long.

Instead, we might be putting NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert out of business with our own Tiny Bathtub Concert series. We broke out the hairbrushes and the combs and, essentially, anything that could serve as water-friendly microphones.

We listened to all of the songs on this playlist plus a few more from this one.

Then we had bathtub snacks and beverages, of course.

But better than Legos, hairbrush microphones, bathtub bubbles and favorite music was the fact that, for the first time in two days, I stopped crying.

I’ve been excessively and unusually weepy—and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Sincerely. It’s me getting in touch with my reality.

Because I’m not perfect. (Although I am perfectly imperfect.)

I have gloriously lofty ideologies, but I will forever make mistakes, and, thankfully, plenty of them.

Because I don’t want to be perfect—that’s boring.

I don’t want to always be good, wholesome, happy and anything else that’s pretty to write about—or read, for that matter.

What I do want to be is this:

Honest.

I want to live my life from a place of genuineness, even if that means that I’m open with my missteps and errant ways.

Still, I don’t want to be open and honest if it means not being kind.

Honesty that deeply hurts another should be questioned adamantly.

Improper.

I don’t want to live in Downton Abbey, although it would be nice to visit.

Sure, I love the clothes and the characters are a fascinating collage of personalities, but it’s—how do I put this—a little too stuffy for me.

I don’t want appropriate at the expense of enjoyment of life.

Idle.

Permanently idle, no—but capable of being idle, yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Movement can sometimes be an escapist means of denial.

To sit in my discomfort, when it arises, is to know myself, and to know myself breeds wisdom and, potentially, a better understanding of those around me as well—and that I want. (Plus, we all need balance and part of balance includes rest.)

Does this mean that I don’t try my damnedest every day to be a wonderfully good and wholesome creature? No—but there’s also a striking difference between intentions, aims and end results.

Much like my day not going as planned, life doesn’t—overall—typically go as scheduled and, further, because of these unexpected detours, we become the people who we are.

And I like me.

I like my sassy tongue–even if that means I’m occasionally a touch too sharp with it.

I like that I’ll never be able to spell occasionally without thinking about it—it means that I’m human.

And I like my daughter’s quirks—they’re, strangely, often her most pleasant talents.

I like, too, the days when my child and I are snowed in or that we’re home not feeling our most amazing—because this is when those little snippets of life happen that bring me the greatest, most genuine, most honest, least expected joys—and that’s why I stopped crying, finally.

After all, there will be plenty of school days and plenty of yoga classes, but there won’t always be days when I have a three year old who wants to sing with me into our toothbrushes in the bathtub—or maybe, just maybe, this will, likewise, be different than I suspect.

Photos: Author’s own.

The post Life (& Happiness) Happen When We Make Other Plans (& Stop Aiming for Perfection). first appeared on Jennifer S. White.