I've been feeling guilty about something lately: my personality "clicks" better with Smooch's personality than it does with Princess's. I try not to let it show. I am conscious to spend special one-on-one time with both of them, and love (as in love is an action) both of them with equal intentionality. However, I struggle with gravitating toward Smooch because her personality draws me in such a way that Princess's does not. (Princess and I are quite a bit alike, and it's the opposite parts of Smooch that draw me in.) I am overtaken with infatuation, and I feel sick over that fact that perhaps Princess can tell the difference.
Please don't misunderstand me. I love our firstborn dearly and she could never ever be replaced in or crowded out of my heart. She is absolutely precious and words cannot describe the depth of my love for her. It's just that I think perhaps "angel babies," the ones that are always happy and seem to never do anything wrong, are just easier to gravitate towards. Even when they're upset, they bury their face in your shoulder and cry rather that pushing you away because they want space. (Psst..."angel babies" make you feel like gold, and I think that every parent deserves at least one baby like that by the way.) In fact, just the concept that Smooch is the baby and I happen to love babies more than the average woman seems to love babies, is reason enough to explain my dilemma. And naturally, she and I have that special "nursing baby and mother" thing going on that seems somewhat mystical in and of itself. But I know it's more than that and I am putting myself out there, writing it down, saying that the guilt eats at me. In fact, I have never mentioned it before this moment.
I am very far from perfect so I know that it is probably detectable with even my best attempts to hide it. I avoid thinking about it other than to check myself for equal expression of love. (I check myself often. I must be conscious of my actions.) Then today, while catching up on some reading, I stumbled across some very raw, honest, helpful blog entries of a mother who happens to relate in this exact struggle. Since I know I can't be the only one with the "angel baby" dilemma, I am happy to share these insightful entries with my friends. After all, we're all in this motherhood thing together, aren't we?
First read this post.
Then read this one.
And finally read the third post in the series.
Anyone brave enough to share some thoughts?
3 comments:
I have started and then erased *so many* posts about this very thing. Your description of how you feel about Natalie and Bella are how I feel about Maddy and Owen to a "T."
Maddy is more like me, and sometimes I get more frustrated at her for it- plus she is just hard for me to handle in general. Owen is like this little slice of heaven that I can't get enough of. It's so ridiculous, in fact, that I get excited to see him when he wakes up in the middle of the night. Maddy? Not so much. Haha :)
I have only admitted the severity of my guilt to Mike and my mom, and now to you (and everyone else in cyberspace). Thank you for posting such encouraging and courageous words, glad I'm not in it alone!
Okay, wow! I am starting to notice this some with my daughter. She is one of those angel babies, combined with being our only girl at this point and I feel so differently toward her than my son! If you've ever researched birth order, it's no wonder we oldest tend to be the way we are. It's fascinating, and scary too. I don't think the differences are as glaring to me, because I do have one of each...but still, I've struggled over feelings of guilt about some things. It's the same as Emily said, I can handle Sprig waking up in the middle of the night SO much easier than if my 2yo does. It's like the expectation level is 10 times stronger for the oldest child. I've really had to learn to extend grace is soooo many new areas...
It's tough stuff! And to admit that we mommas are human too is almost as hard. ;-) Maybe the love just flows more easily with each subsequent child b/c we get more broken in. Ha ha. Whatever the reason, temperment, personality, birth order (LeAnna, yes, I love birth order stuff too - very facinating.), gender, or a combination of all of it, I like knowing that "loving differently" doesn't mean "loving unequally." After all, no two people are alike.
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