#2 is 22...

When she burst on the scene, it was more like a sloooow burst…like a 12+ hours of labor and no drugs to take the edge off type of burst.  It wasn’t my favorite.  When she was born and they said she weighed in just shy of 10lbs. I was like…no, no, no, remember I’m the lady that was having a new born baby! 10lbs would be more like a 2 month old!

It should go without saying that I declared within moments of her birth that my birthing years were definitely OVER! (hey, my body was definitely not made for that! 10lb babies are just crazy wrong!)

Apparently most of the nurses also mistook her for a 2 month old, and therefore they never did that whole Apgar test in the hospital... why bother? She was practically sitting up and feeding herself. But it’s whatever, we knew she was brilliant, and after her we saw her beautiful brown eyes open, we knew that we could totally handle loving her. Having done this whole “baby thing” once before, her dad and I knew a few things and we were feeling like parenting professionals.

Back when #1 was born, one of us, (starts with a “B”) may have thought (out loud) that babies didn’t open their eyes for 6 weeks, you know, kind of like kittens.  So after both my mom and the nurse composed themselves, they informed us that actually, we had given birth to a baby girl, not a kitten, and she would open her eyes at any moment. So you can see that a mere 18 months later we knew we were total going to nail this parenting thing on this 2^nd baby.  

Our take on parenting was simple: #2 would be a breeze…with open eyes and all! Boom, done!

We justified that since she was such a big baby, clearly the “infant” rules didn’t apply to her. We took that baby everywhere, to church, Mexican restaurants, and I’m pretty sure we let every junior high girl hold her and kiss all over her. For the record, I really don’t think junior high girls, Mexicans restaurants or churches have germs or something, because they held and kissed #2 so much and she really never so much as got a sniffle.

Because #2 really was an easy baby, its often forgotten that there were a few weeks after she was born of nonstop crying. It may have made me slightly crazy, and a tad irrational. She would cry that loooong ear piercing cry that makes you forget who you are and why you live. Therefore, when I got a call they needed a last minute chaperone for a high school scavenger hunt, I promptly loaded #1 and #2 -aka “the cry baby”- up and we placed her smack dab in the arms of our good neighbor, Ron Bergoon. Can I just say that he didn’t even flinch! He took her like a boss and was all calm, stoic and in control, he turned to us and said, “yall go on…she’ll be just fine.”  

And we didn’t even look back!

(please note* If you have ever had any kind of experience with a crying baby at all, you should just fall on your knees and BLESS Mr. Ron EVERYTIME YOU SEE HIM. I’m fairly certain he saved my life and the life of my #2 that day.)

Ironically, shortly after this, my #2 quickly became her old self and fell into her rhythm of content and easy to please, honestly, this is probably because she had NO MORE tears to cry!  She was greatness. A mushy tub of love and happiness and a committed slave to her all of her sister’s brilliant and fun ideas. She easily won the hearts of everyone she encountered…except the sweet 3 year old little girl in her Mothers Day Out class that she kept biting! (& we are still feeling really sorry about that…and we have continued to work on not biting others!)  

There was also a brief but fabulous season in my life when my #2 declared that she had an imaginary friend named Jessica. Jessica seemed to always be the most “real” to her in public places where she would, uhm...let’s say, get left in the car! For some reason, my #2 would choose to wait until we were in front of a crowd of strangers and yell out, “Mommy, we have to go back and get Jessica, you left her in the car again!”

Nothing makes people start turning and staring at you quicker than a child hollering you left another child in the car, it was such a great feeling as a mom. I cannot tell you how many times I walked back to an empty car and opened the door for this invisible person to get out. As if that wasn’t enough, when Jessica, the invisible friend, would finally get out of the car, my #2 would insist that I hold Jessica’s hand, “like a good mommy!”   Since there was a strong chance that CPS was already in route, I did what any normal “good” mom would do and proceeded to hold hands with an invisible child.

It was at this point that I knew I may be actually going crazy. I would actually think to myself, “I am a grown woman who is holding hands, cooking meals and buckling and unbuckling seatbelts for imaginary and very invisible children. This can't be normal”  It is because of this that to this day, I can barely say the name Jessica without having flashbacks to these insane moments of motherhood. -& yeah, although, I’m sure your Jessica is quite lovely and all, let’s just agree that I may call her Jess, or Jessie or something different.

Because of my #2, no one in our homes is EVER allowed to give specific or concise answers. Why? Because, she will hold you to that answer, for-flippin’ EVER!! Any questions out of her mouth are a set up for complete failure. This is simply her sneaky way of roping you into a blood oath regarding something as minor as let’s say: dinner.
#2: What’s for dinner?
Me: Chicken.
So when dinner time comes you change your mind and think, “Hey, let’s eat out!” this is no big thing you think, after all everyone likes to go out to eat, right?

Wrong!

You will never be able to explain away the fact that in a brief moment while being peppered with questions, that you flippantly said “Yo, #2, enough already. chicken is for dinner. Please stop asking me questions!” Because apparently, when you said chicken, you committed to chicken, and not just ANY day or ANY place or ANY chicken, but today. at dinner time. in your house. Kill me.

And while it is these moments that have made me completely question my will to live, I must admit she also made me weep for a week straight when she left for college and my nest was temporarily empty. She loves others fiercely, and is more loyal than anyone I’ve ever known. Today has been a little sad for me since I don’t get to be with her on her birthday. But I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the greatness she has brought into my life. When she was born I was the same age, 22, that she is today. I was ill prepared to mother anyone, let alone 2 little girls that needed so much guidance and the kind of love I just didn’t know how to give. So, as it has been with so many things in my life, God graciously recalibrated my heart and has taught ME guidance as I tried to lead them. And along the way they showed ME how to love well.

Experiencing the love of my #2 (& my #1) has definitely been a great reward for a mother that is just failing forward.

Happy Birthday Cho Cho Baby, like so many others in your life - I am better because of you.

xoxo~
mama