Favorites

One of my biggest concerns about having two children was the idea that I might play favorites. I would never want either of my kids to feel less loved than the other. Granted, Violet is only 12 days old, but already we are having a much easier time with her than we had with Jack. From the birth onward, everything about our experience with her has been less stressful than it was the first time around. I was mentioning this to a friend of mine, and she joked, "Oh, Janis has a favorite already!"

But really I don't.

There are several reasons why things are easier this time around, and I think most of them have to do with us as parents, not the particular baby. We are so much more relaxed this time. With Jack, we were paranoid about everything, especially SIDS and making sure that he was eating enough. We wouldn't let him sleep with us, and we made sure that we woke him up every few hours to eat (in our defense, this was the doctor's advice). As a consequence, it took him a really long time to establish good sleeping habits.

Also, it really does make a difference that I'm not recovering from major surgery. I am just physically able to do more. And I already have an established group of mommy friends to provide support and friendship for both myself and Jack. This does a lot to motivate me to get out of the house.

Finally, it really really helps that we - and especially Tom - have so much more experience now. I remember when Tom used to change Jack's newborn diapers. Sometimes I just had to not watch, because he was so nervous and bumbling. Now he's a pro. I'm also a pro at the breastfeeding (after two years of nursing Jack, I better be!), so there's less stress there as well.

That isn't to say that Violet isn't proving to be a little mellower than Jack. She definitely is, but there is something to be said for having gone through a trial by fire, as it were, with Jack that makes me feel particularly close to him. Also, he and I are so temperamentally similar that I really empathize with his struggles and frustrations, even as they frustrate me at the same time.

Another friend of mine told me that she struggled with feeling guilty about having a second one: guilty because she was taking attention away from her first and guilty because she would never be able to give the second as much one-on-one attention as she gave the oldest. I never really had those feelings. Of course we love Violet for who she is, but by and large, we had a second child for Jack. I personally would have been happy with only one, but I think Jack is someone who would really benefit from having a built-in companion, playmate, rival, and best friend. As I've said before, he was enough for us, but I don't think we were enough for him.

As far as not being able to give Violet as much attention as we gave Jack, I think in the long run it is going to stand her in better stead that we simply cannot run to her the second she cries. She is going to have to learn how to self-soothe more quickly and to be more easygoing. And if she is able to do that, I think life will be a little easier overall for her than it would be otherwise.

I'm not naive enough to think that there won't ever be times when I like one of my children more than the other, but I certainly hope that I don't find that it's always the same one. It's my job as a parent to raise both my children to be people that I not only love but like and respect as well.