second child syndrome.

my poor second child.

she hasn't gotten the monthly love letters.

i haven't documented every time she has smiled, looked at her hands, grabbed a toy, or held her head up.

i don't snap a million pictures at doctor's appointments while the nurse looks at me like "let me do my job, lady."

i haven't gotten her professional pictures done. yes, folks. no pictures of the little toes or fingers and none - not even a single one - of her in a basket.

i don't check babycenter.com twice every day to see how she should be developing.

i don't always put baby oil on her after baths and i don't make sure she listens to mozart 30 times a day.

something happens with your second. maybe it's that your time is too divided with your first. or that you are less paranoid about whether she's doing everything by the book. or that you are tired. so very tired.

but something else that happens, too - you enjoy. even if she spends most of her days screaming. you hold her tight. you bounce and sway and you figure it out. and you stare at her for hours and hope she knows with certainty that you'd walk off a cliff, jump in shark-infested waters, give up every last thing you owned for her. like in a second.

you are able to endure those hard newborn days with new lenses. lenses that are able to see through the fog - beyond - to when she is singing twinkle twinkle little star by herself, when she is running up to people with outstretched arms giving them hugs, when she is saying "i love YOU, mommy." you know those days are just around the corner and you can't wait for them, but still, it reminds you to slow down. to stop. to enjoy these days when all she wants from you is to hold her, rock her, stare into her eyes and tell her there's nowhere else you'd rather be.

i know, sweet love. i'm a second child, too. we get the shaft sometimes. but we are also adored. we get to be the precious babies of the family. we get to get our older siblings in trouble. we get to play the youngest child card.

for. the. rest. of. our. lives.

not a bad deal.

i promise. you are going to like this gig.