“Tell me a story ’bout William was born,” Penny said in the
car this morning.

“Well, two years ago, my belly was really really big.”

“Baby in your belly?” William chimed in.

“Yep, but that time the baby was you!”

“Oh.” (He looks very serious whenever he says oh.)

I went on: “My belly was big, and then it started to hurt,
so I knew that it was time for William to be born. We went to the hospital and
I pushed and pushed, and the doctor pulled and pulled, and William came out!”

It was different to welcome William into the world after the dramatic birth of his sister two and a half
years earlier. With William, labor and delivery were much harder, but then it
felt a little bit like a vacation. No tears. No worries. Just a little baby and
lots of simple congratulations. An easy, mellow love without the complexities and ferocity of my love for his sister. 

The thing was, when we brought him home, we had a really
rough time. I had heard from other parents that I didn’t need to worry if I
didn’t love William as much as Penny. They assured me that the love would come
with time.

But love wasn’t the problem. The problem was that we didn’t
like William all that much. He was tough. If I put him in the stroller, he
cried. If I swaddled him tight, he cried. If I sat him on my lap, he cried. My
mother, who bore four children herself, said, “I’ve never heard a baby who
cried this much.”

And he cried intensely. In fact, everything about him was
intense. Light and noises woke him up. Food, no matter how much I restricted my
diet, seemed to disturb his stomach. He wriggled and flailed and exhausted us.

The turning point came around nine months, although it wasn’t
until he was about one-year old that I realized the change. Not only did I love
William as much as I loved Penny. I liked him as much as Penny too.

The past year has been more of the same–everything from our
trip to the Emergency Room for him to get stitches in his ear to watching him learn
how to talk to becoming friends with his big sister… It has all contributed
to liking William a lot. He’s still intense. He just happens to be intensely
sweet and happy most of the time.

So now we’re preparing to make room in our hearts and home
for baby number three. Today, Penny told me she wanted to visit us in the
hospital when the baby comes. She said, “I’ll kiss you, Mom. And tell you
that you’re going to be okay.”

You’ve got it, Pen. It might take me a little while, but I,
and our family, will be okay. We’ll love each other. Hopefully most days we’ll like each other too. Especially with your kisses along the way.