confidante who, settling into the front seat of the car beside me or reaching for the fanciest china teacup at the kitchen table, says with a happy, expectant sigh, “What are we going to discuss today?”
You have a child, and then you think you know what children are like. Who yours resemble. How it is, being a parent. Everything has changed, and will never be the same. There can be no enormous surprises left.
But then maybe you have another child. And it turns out you didn’t really know what babies were like after all. You knew only that first baby. This second one is all new, something totally different. He teaches you about himself, and also—by his differences—about his sibling. That face she made (that you thought all babies make) turns out to be hers alone. Your children are not necessarily dark-haired and dark-skinned after all. (They can also be blond and fair.) As for being a parent: You knew all about raising one child. But all the rules change, raising two.
And then there is that other joy that comes when there is more than one, and that is seeing your two children together. Providing them with the gift of each other.
Audrey had been an only child for four years and a month when her brother Charlie was born. For four years she had been the central—only—star in our small galaxy, and certainly my life revolved powerfully around hers. Every morning she’d bound into our bed, asking us what we were going to do today. Sew doll clothes, make valentines, bake pies? Drive to the children’s museum, play Old Maid all afternoon? We had tea parties with my grandmother’s china. We sewed dollhouse curtains and embroidered hankies. I read her stacks of books at a sitting, and when we were done she’d turn to me to ask, “What do we do next?”
Even the desire for another child came, in part, anyway, out of my endless attempts to give the one I already had everything (including a sibling). I was eager for another child too, and hoping for a boy. But in my heart of hearts, I don’t think I ever believed I would love another child as much as I loved the one I already had: my dark-eyed, dark-skinned, dark-haired daughter, the little girl who looked like me and gave me a chance to relive and (sometimes) rewrite my own childhood. I never had a brother, myself. But Audrey would have one.
It was a good and easy second pregnancy, filled not only with Steve’s and my anticipation, but this time with Audrey’s too. She and I used to carry on conversations with her sibling before he was born: Audrey, lifting up my maternity top, whispering gently into my belly button, and me, in a squeaky, muffled voice, providing the baby’s response. She asked the baby questions about life in utero, but more than that, he would ask her about the outside world, and then she’d hold forth, sweetly and patiently explaining Christmas, or popcorn, or telling him about our house, our dog, the room that would be his. She sang him songs, taught him the numbers up to ten, told him, above all, not to worry about being born. She’d take care of him. Every couple of weeks I’d cook a ham—usually a seven- or eight-pounder—and whenever I got one, I’d let Audrey carry it around the kitchen for a while, before it went in the oven, so she’d get used to the weight of a baby. Pretty soon she was calling our unborn baby Hamhead, and Steve and I did too.
Eventually Hamhead—Charlie—was born. But where my daughter had been instantly familiar to me, my son showed up like a wonderful, lovable stranger. A boy, for one thing. And a big, ten-pound, blue-eyed blond. A child over whom people still express surprise when they hear he’s mine (and the brother of Audrey). They’re that different.
I liked him right away, of course, but where the heart gives over blindly to a first child, this time I held back some. No question about it, my first loyalties were to the child who’d been with us four years already. If he was crying, and she
You have a child, and then you think you know what children are like. Who yours resemble. How it is, being a parent. Everything has changed, and will never be the same. There can be no enormous surprises left.
But then maybe you have another child. And it turns out you didn’t really know what babies were like after all. You knew only that first baby. This second one is all new, something totally different. He teaches you about himself, and also—by his differences—about his sibling. That face she made (that you thought all babies make) turns out to be hers alone. Your children are not necessarily dark-haired and dark-skinned after all. (They can also be blond and fair.) As for being a parent: You knew all about raising one child. But all the rules change, raising two.
And then there is that other joy that comes when there is more than one, and that is seeing your two children together. Providing them with the gift of each other.
Audrey had been an only child for four years and a month when her brother Charlie was born. For four years she had been the central—only—star in our small galaxy, and certainly my life revolved powerfully around hers. Every morning she’d bound into our bed, asking us what we were going to do today. Sew doll clothes, make valentines, bake pies? Drive to the children’s museum, play Old Maid all afternoon? We had tea parties with my grandmother’s china. We sewed dollhouse curtains and embroidered hankies. I read her stacks of books at a sitting, and when we were done she’d turn to me to ask, “What do we do next?”
Even the desire for another child came, in part, anyway, out of my endless attempts to give the one I already had everything (including a sibling). I was eager for another child too, and hoping for a boy. But in my heart of hearts, I don’t think I ever believed I would love another child as much as I loved the one I already had: my dark-eyed, dark-skinned, dark-haired daughter, the little girl who looked like me and gave me a chance to relive and (sometimes) rewrite my own childhood. I never had a brother, myself. But Audrey would have one.
It was a good and easy second pregnancy, filled not only with Steve’s and my anticipation, but this time with Audrey’s too. She and I used to carry on conversations with her sibling before he was born: Audrey, lifting up my maternity top, whispering gently into my belly button, and me, in a squeaky, muffled voice, providing the baby’s response. She asked the baby questions about life in utero, but more than that, he would ask her about the outside world, and then she’d hold forth, sweetly and patiently explaining Christmas, or popcorn, or telling him about our house, our dog, the room that would be his. She sang him songs, taught him the numbers up to ten, told him, above all, not to worry about being born. She’d take care of him. Every couple of weeks I’d cook a ham—usually a seven- or eight-pounder—and whenever I got one, I’d let Audrey carry it around the kitchen for a while, before it went in the oven, so she’d get used to the weight of a baby. Pretty soon she was calling our unborn baby Hamhead, and Steve and I did too.
Eventually Hamhead—Charlie—was born. But where my daughter had been instantly familiar to me, my son showed up like a wonderful, lovable stranger. A boy, for one thing. And a big, ten-pound, blue-eyed blond. A child over whom people still express surprise when they hear he’s mine (and the brother of Audrey). They’re that different.
I liked him right away, of course, but where the heart gives over blindly to a first child, this time I held back some. No question about it, my first loyalties were to the child who’d been with us four years already. If he was crying, and she
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