Already forgetting my firstborn
It’s not entirely accurate that I’m forgetting my firstborn, but it’s true I am already forgetting what it was like to only have him.
Now that my second child has arrived, it feels impossible not to prioritize them both. Truly, from the moment I saw her, she was fully here, completely present. It was like she’d always been part of our family, except also she was only a minute old.
Now we’re coming up on two weeks in and the previous three-and-a-half years feels like the distant past. I don’t love my son any less, thank goodness (not that I really worried I would), but I sure do cherish his sister. And my instincts to protect a vulnerable newborn from an unpredictable older sibling are nearly irrepressible.
So I am grateful for moments like this one, when the baby is upstairs with my spouse and I am down here in the family bed with our oldest. Tonight he was wild for a while but right now he is sprawled out, snoring.
And any minute now my partner will join us, and I’ll be on infant duty again for the foreseeable, and I won’t really mind, because I understand with biting clarity how fleeting this time truly is.
But this, right now, this time alone with my firstborn, quiet save for the bubbling of the humidifier and the soothing rhythm of the same soft snores I’ve been hearing for years now. This is a comfort I want to remember.
Love,
(M)om