Second Time Around

Before you read the rest of this entry, go ahead and look at my 2006 archives, from January through April.  Go on.  I'll wait.

Did you notice how many of those posts were baby-pic filled gushings about Penny?  So many, right? 

Now look at the last four months.  Hmm.  Things have been pretty quiet around here, even though there is an equally adorable and amazing baby in my life now.

I was afraid this might happen.

A parable:

When my cousins and I were little, we loved looking through our baby books.  I had TWO that my parents put together for me.  I was an only child, natch.  My cousin, Andrea, had the sweetest baby book, too. She was the first girl in her family, and the baby book shows how excited my aunt and uncle were to have her.  Then, there was Belkis' book. She was the second girl, the fourth baby.  Her book was sort of pitifully blank.  I recall, vividly, how there was a "Nicknames for Baby" section in Andrea's book. Her nicknames--la princesa, la muñeca, etc. etc.  The princess, the doll, the most beautimous baby to ever have been born.  Belkis' nicknames?  Bola de humo, tronco de yuca. etc.  Ball of smoke, trunk of a yuca plant. Seriously.  These weren't mean nicknames, though it may seem that way.  They were loving things we all said about Belkis, the little one with the biggest personality, whose first words were "No" and "Stop."

Anyhow, getting off the rails here a bit.  But I remember how SAD Belkis' baby book made her. Not so much for the nicknames, which I think she understood, but for the emptiness of it.  I remember thinking that if I ever had more than one baby, the second one would not someday feel so overlooked on paper or in photo albums.

Now, I've done a bang-up job on Mary-Blair's baby book. It is a sight to behold.  But on the blog-front, that other "baby book," I've been sorely blasé about posting her pictures, bragging about her baby-brilliance and baby milestones and my fears and hopes for her. One day, she may look at these archives and wonder why I didn't try to capture her babyhood in pixels and bytes the way I did her sister's.

Once, I thought second (and third, and fourth, etc.) babies got the shaft because their mothers were too tired wrangling children to memorialize every single moment.  I thought, too, that babies that came after the first were just...not new anymore.  The excitement of being a first-time mom was diminished.  It was all old hat.

Now, I know the truth.  I'm not posting as much, or even taking as many pictures of Mary-Blair because I get how fleeting these baby days are.  Even as I'm typing this, little Embee is beside me, squealing her happy little sounds, and I'm typing like there's a demon at my wrists because I want to finish this and play with her.  Screw the blog.  I've got a baby to look at.

That's the truth. And so, I force myself to take pictures and write posts like this because I will regret it later, and so will Embee, if I don't.  But my lack of blogposts and "memory capturing" isn't due to boredom, or busyness.  It's because I'm diligent about making memories instead of trying to snag them for posterity.

So here, have a picture of this amazing girl at 3 1/2 months. In the meantime, I'm going to go snuggle her in person.

Jealous, aren't you?