The Second Child I am now the proud mother of two amazing little girls. While I was pregnant with Lily, my second child, I worried a great deal about how her arrival would affect our family dynamics. I worried that Ella would feel left out with everyone focusing attention on the new baby. I worried that Lily would be overshadowed by Ella, who has a rock star's personality and who has been the center of the family's universe since her arrival. I lay awake at night thinking of new things to worry about. I don't have a frame of reference on second children. I am the oldest child in my family: My sister is almost seven years younger. I think for my parents it was much like having a second first child. I remember being thrilled with Sarah when she was a baby and all cute and cuddly, but growing less and less enchanted with her as she got older and more of a pest. I'm fairly sure I was a pretty horrible older sister at times. It's only now that we are both older that we are getting to be closer. I want Ella and Lily to be closer than Sarah and I were. Now that Lily is here, I've done my best to make things equitable, but it just isn't possible to do all the time. Even in my writing, Ella gets more of the attention. Not one of the essays I've posted has been devoted to Lily. It's a fact of life that things are vastly different for the second child from the very beginning. While I had a crib special room all ready for Ella, Lily slept in a cradle in our closet until she was three months old. We didn't set the crib up until then. Ella had all brand-new clothes and furniture and sheets and toys. Lily's are mostly hand-me-downs. She even started off life with hand-me-down germs; she caught a cold from her big sister when she was six days old. With Ella I carefully chronicled the first year of her life in a journal. Lily's newborn journal ends somewhere around three months. I can still tell you exactly how old Ella was for each of her developmental milestones. In some cases, I can even tell you where we were when she performed some feat for the first time. For example, we were at Barton Springs with Sarah and Jack Blackburn and Liz McGuire when we noticed Ella's first tooth. I think Lily's first tooth poked through sometime around Thanksgiving. But I'm not quite sure. Fortunately, there is photographic evidence of Lily's babyhood. She won't be able to hold a lack of pictures against me when she is older. I've also been absolutely fair about scrapbooks; neither girl has anything resembling one. Ella's contains a few pictures that have been glued in and some other items that I've crammed between the pages. Lily's is a box with important things like her hospital bracelets and newborn hat. I'm just not that organized. I assuage my guilt with my online collection of pictures and comments. Both girls get their own sections there. It was a good thing that Lily was a happy, calm baby. She was content to sit in her seat and watch the morning chaos of getting Ella dressed and ready for the day. If she had been demanding, Brandon would have probably found me locked in the closet crying. I joked that she was my reward baby. While Ella was a good baby, she was a bit of a challenge. Lily, on the other hand, has been very easy. So easy that there were times I forgot she was in the house. I'm embarrassed to admit that more than once I left Lily in our bathroom in her seat while getting Ella dressed after her bath only to realize 20 minutes later that she was still back there. I'd go sprinting to the bathroom and find Lily sound asleep or smiling at herself in the mirror. I've heard it said that each child has different parents. I think it's very true in our case. By all accounts, I was a nervous wreck with Ella. I don't remember this, but Brandon, my mom and my sister all agree that I spent much of Ella's first few weeks of life crying at the slightest thing. I know I wasn't like that with Lily. I'm far more relaxed with her, and I think maybe it has had an affect on her personality. We're more relaxed, which makes her more relaxed. Or maybe she was just meant to be a sunny little person, regardless of her parents. Even though I've been through all of this before, and even though Ella is proof that Brandon and I can successfully keep a child healthy and happy, I've found all sorts of new things to worry about with Lily. Ella still absorbs so much of my time and energy that I worry Lily is being neglected. I worry that I don't play with her and read to her as much as I did Ella. I worry that this lack of attention will harm her. I worry that one will be smarter than the other or a better athlete than the other and they'll feel the need to compete with each other. Then I worry that I worry too much. But then I look at Lily, my roly-poly, happy child and realize we're doing OK. She gets smothered with kissed all day long. She and I have our time together while Ella is at school. She worships her big sister and follows her around all day. Ella dotes on her baby sister, most of the time, and plays with her and sings songs to her. I've found that it is possible to have two centers in our little universe.