Ode to A Second Child

It’s happened. By the end of the week my baby will have been in the world for as long as he was in my tummy. Which means  1) heading back to work – if I could add a teary emoji I would 2) emotional contemplation galore.

Everyone says ‘poor second child’ but I think second children are amazing. Here’s why:

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Thank you Woody Telford…

For proving that the amount of love you think you are capable of feeling can double over night.

For showing me I am stronger than I have ever thought possible, being able to: 

Power push a buggy, with a  baby in a sling, a backpack on and all manner of unnecessary items stashed under the buggy is no mean feat.

Neither is being patient enough to deal with a irrational two year old after being up all night with a newborn.

For making me briefly love Peppa Pig.  She might be a chatterbox-muddy-puddle-jumping-irritation but she is a dab hand at toddler-minding.

For making the fear of ‘what if I prefer one child to the other?’ seem laughable.  Both are favourite sometimes. Often it chops and changes within a single meal team.

For letting me enjoy those precious early days. Less “fuck fuck fuck I’m a Mum” more “I’m going to wear joggers and eat runny cheese and too much cake and demand people bring me water” and nobody can stop me.

For beating the obsession. I already knew the score with sleep. You are going to be tired. 8 is a lie in. No need to talk/google/compare with others about it this time.

For (to mis-quote Jerry Maguire) “completing us”. Once you are a family of four you properly feel like a gang.

 For enabling the super cute vision of having both your babies sleep in the same bedroom. NB This has only actually ever happened once, as we always bottle it.

For teaching your brother about being gentle, and to share (apart from Babybel obvs).

For giving him someone to laugh with long before you can even talk.

For being a better sleeper. And proving that I didn’t ‘do anything wrong’ the first time. Babies sleep how they sleep.

For teaching me that even tiny people have their own style. I thought you’d just wear what your brother wore. Not the case.

For actually looking like me.  Thank the lord – nothing more gaulling than growing, birthing, feeding a human to have them look entirely like Daddy.

For eating everything. Absolutely everything. 

For an incredibly transformative 9 months. Second maternity leave is a gift, you know what parenting involves. This time you can use those months to figure out who you are and where you want to go.

For epic organisational skills. Bath time with more than one child involves planning. And negotiating. But when you walk down stairs, put away the toys, pour a gin, you feel heroic.

For proving that labour can be an awesome experience. 

For taking an unusual  name and absolutely owning it: Wood-cock? Wood-pecker? I’ve got Wood. Woody as in Woody from Toy Story (err Woody from This is England). I’ve been asked all those thing 100 times and just don’t care.

For being my partner in crime. Going in for a sneaky breastfeed to avoid changing a nappy/unpacking the dishwasher.

For not letting anyone take you for granted. Patient but not a push-over. Indepedent but still affectionate.

For proving me wrong. I thought I wanted a girl. Now I feel chuffed to bits to have two boys. Although I draw the line at pretending to give a monkeys about vehicles or dinosaurs. T-rex is a dude. The rest can bore off.

For not being number 2. But my second ‘number 1’.