Month 1, or Welcome Home, Miriam

Dear Miriam,

Welcome to our family, little girl!  We love you so much and we're so happy you're here with us.  You arrived on a Monday morning that was cool and windy and rainy.  I was expecting you earlier than you came, but you were right on your due date.  You'll just have to put up with having your birthday the day before mine for the rest of your life.  Although, with the amount of friends and relatives that we have with birthdays in March, you're lucky that you're not sharing with someone that we know.

So far, you've been a pretty easy kid, which is such a blessing.  You had a bit of jaundice, so you had to sleep on a special light bed when you came home, but other than that you're very healthy.  You're up two or three times a night, and really only fussy when you're tired.  You haven't liked taking a bottle very much, but you'll have to get used to it soon, when I go back to work.  You are kind of a restless sleeper, which can be hard because it means that you want us to hold you all the time instead of laying you down.  Sometimes it's easiest to just put you in the carrier and wear you around while I do things.

I'm trying not to compare you to Corbin all the time, but it's hard to avoid.  Sometimes you remind me so strongly of him, and sometimes you just remind me of what it's like to have a newborn.  We've been surprised that you don't have any mongol marks like he did.  We keep wondering if his eyes had started changing by now, because yours have not.  You make funny faces and funny noises, like he did.  I even went back and looked at some of his baby pictures, to see if you look as alike as I felt you did.  But it's also a process of remembering just how many diapers a newborn goes through, and just how much laundry babies generate. 

I'm also trying not to be impatient with you, or myself, because I know how some things will become easier when you're older.  I have to tell myself to slow down, and to let you be yourself right now.  It makes me wonder how much you will affected by feelings of needing to grow up faster so that you can keep up with Corbin.  I know that I felt that way sometimes, and being compared to a sibling can be a hard thing to handle.  I hope that when you feel challenged that way, it is because of your own choice to challenge yourself and not because of something that you think we expect.  We have been proud and happy to be Corbin's parents, but we didn't have a second child because we wanted a second Corbin.  You are your own person, and you bring us your own unique reasons that we are be proud and happy to be your parents, too.

Love,
Mom