Newborn: take two

I'm going to let you in on an awful little secret. It's one I feel okay sharing because I don't think it'll cause too, too much emotional turmoil down the road for my firstborn since I've hopefully made it clear how delighted I am by her overall.

Here goes:

I'm enjoying the newborn stage the second time around much more than the first.

There, I said it.

It's not that I didn't enjoy Kalina's newborn and infant stages. I occasionally look back and pictures and remember how cute she was and how much fun it was to watch her grow and develop. It's just that many of the times when the camera shutter wasn't clicking, I was tearing my hair out and slowly dying from sleep deprivation. Worst of all, I didn't even know what hit me.

I remember at the time one friend who gave birth to her second a few months after I gave birth to my first told me, not unkindly at all, how much easier it had been with just one (hi, Krista!). "Good thing I won't be having another," I mentally told myself.

And yes, thinking back, it could've been far easier with just one, had I known that my one would eventually sleep through the night, roll over on her own and quit her infernal screaming through every single change of clothes and diaper, for heaven's sake.

But with your first, the shock of "I've been bouncing this baby for 2 hours and she's still awake," or "I just did laundry yesterday and now all my clean shirts have chunky yellow spitup on them so I have nothing nice to wear to the grocery store," and the emotional trauma of the horrid Facebook posts from childless friends that complain "...might not survive, it's 5 am and I'm already awake" leave you withered and fried. [Or possibly worse, "my 3-week-old is sleeping through the night!"]

Can you tell I'm still, to this day, getting over it?

And then the second one comes along. This time, you hardly hear the crying--it's relatively simple to remedy and besides, you've heard worse--and nothing takes you by surprise. You preemptively scatter burp cloths, blankets and pacifiers around the house (only to have them gathered into a big pile by your neat-freak toddler). You develop a strategy and full range of tactics to combat sleep deprivation, reevaluating every evening. Most of all, you remember that it does go rather quickly (in hindsight, only) and that you have a matching hat and booty hand-me-down that will make your cute newborn even cuter, if such a thing were possible.

You know:
-Soon, the baby will learn not to poop at night, which means fewer miserable "diaper changes by Braille"
-Spitup washes out just fine, even without stain stick, until the baby starts solid food.
-Sleep usually gets better before it gets worse, but at least you get a respite.
-Any bad habits you create out of sheer desperation are usually fixable.
These things will all help.

Plus, newborns are remarkably easygoing. You can dress them up in ridiculously cute outfits and lug them all around town and they just go on eating and sleeping and excreting as they've been born to do. Nothing phases them as long as they're in a cozy carrier of some sort.

And of course, it helps that Elise is pretty amazing. We think she already understands the concept of using her hand to keep her pacifier in, and she can even occasionally calm herself down. She likes her swing now and has even been looking at the little dangly things on it that are supposed to entertain babies, but that Kalina never gave a second (or first) thought to. Her hair is still soft and fuzzy, which is fun in the middle of the night when I'm so sleep-deprived that all I can think of is "aw, I'm petting a baby bunny!" She doesn't mind tummy time, and she's starting to be fascinated by lights, which is a very easy-to-entertain phase (they all are for a while).

I do feel bad that I can't pay the same attention to Elise that I did to Kalina. The poor girl gets all but ignored every morning and afternoon, but doted on every second that I'm not trying to rescue her from her big sister's hugs, kisses, and wild jumping (so, when the 2-year-old is asleep). I have a feeling she'll find her own way to budge into the conversation and playtime, though, as she's proven she's not afraid of being vocal.

We have fun personifying Elise and showing her things (and showing her off to Kalina's animals). We put words in her mouth ("Elise loves your new cat shirt, Kalina!") and generally make sure she's part of the family. It's just fun.

I'll admit, though, that we enjoy her most in the daytime. When do newborns sleep through the night?

Photos:
1: Cute
2: Elise's fist bottle! During our family adventure on Saturday (yummy breakfast out and a walk in a garden)
3. Cute