Shortly after we had our second baby, people were always asking us: “Who is the better baby?”
When I first heard this question I opened my mouth to answer, but the words got logjammed in my throat. My two year old was nearby, smiling and giggling.
Two years olds understand English.
But that’s not the reason behind the logjam. The question felt foreign to me. It had never crossed my mind. It felt as if I had been forced to stuff my post partum hips into a pair of pre-partum jeans – standing and sitting, inhaling, exhaling, all the while nursing babies, teaching toddlers to potty and say ‘please,’ morning and evening, morning and evening until sweat beads formed like shiny pearls on the brow of my lip.
But I love those pair of jeans and so I’m content to wear them with the top button unbuttoned, my fleshy, after baby belly hanging out. Like a muffin top.
The question was too snug. Uncomfortable. One isn’t better than the other. In fact, my children are a lot alike.
They both have pooped yellowish, greenish, sticky sweet smelling poop on me.
They both have given me sleepless nights.
They both have puked curdlike frothy spit up on me.
They both have given me sleepless nights.
They both have screamed on me so loudly I thought I’d pop an eardrum.
They both have given me sleepless nights.
They both have made me question whether I was doing this mothering thing “right.” Especially when I’m in the pediatrician’s office and my son falls off a stool and bangs his head on the cold, hard floor.
Did I mention they both have given me sleepless nights?
But there have been times when my son’s toddler antics have made me laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe.
And times when my two month old’s gummy smile gave me the warm and fuzzies.
Times when I wiped both of their poopy butts and, for a moment, caught the light of God shimmering in their dark eyes.
I’m comfortable with that. Just like I’m comfortable with my too tight jeans and my muffin top.
When I brought my second child home from the hospital, I worried that she would be “harder” than the first. I worried that I wouldn’t love them the same. I worried that I’d treat one differently than the other. Human thoughts. Fleshy thoughts. Muffin top thoughts.
And that’s okay too. Because that’s the magic and the mess of motherhood.
Muffin top.
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