<\/p>\n
“Tell me a story ’bout William was born,” Penny said in the
\ncar this morning.<\/p>\n
“Well, two years ago, my belly was really really big.”<\/p>\n
“Baby in your belly?” William chimed in.<\/p>\n
“Yep, but that time the baby was you!”<\/p>\n
“Oh.” (He looks very serious whenever he says oh.)<\/p>\n
I went on: “My belly was big, and then it started to hurt,
\nso I knew that it was time for William to be born. We went to the hospital and
\nI pushed and pushed, and the doctor pulled and pulled, and William came out!”<\/p>\n
It was different to welcome William into the world after the dramatic birth of his sister two and a half
\nyears earlier. With William, labor and delivery were much harder, but then it
\nfelt a little bit like a vacation. No tears. No worries. Just a little baby and
\nlots of simple congratulations. An easy, mellow love without the complexities and ferocity of my love for his sister. <\/p>\n
The thing was, when we brought him home, we had a really
\nrough time. I had heard from other parents that I didn’t need to worry if I
\ndidn’t love William as much as Penny. They assured me that the love would come
\nwith time. <\/p>\n
But love wasn’t the problem. The problem was that we didn’t
\nlike<\/i> William all that much. He was tough. If I put him in the stroller, he
\ncried. If I swaddled him tight, he cried. If I sat him on my lap, he cried. My
\nmother, who bore four children herself, said, “I’ve never heard a baby who
\ncried this much.” <\/p>\n
And he cried intensely. In fact, everything about him was
\nintense. Light and noises woke him up. Food, no matter how much I restricted my
\ndiet, seemed to disturb his stomach. He wriggled and flailed and exhausted us.<\/p>\n
The turning point came around nine months, although it wasn’t
\nuntil he was about one-year old that I realized the change. Not only did I love
\nWilliam as much as I loved Penny. I liked him as much as Penny too.<\/p>\n