No matter what I do, I somehow seem to feel guilty. If I spend time with Josie, I feel like I'm neglecting Sadie. If I spend time with Sadie, I feel like I'm neglecting Josie. I try to do it 50/50, but somebody always ends up getting the short end of the stick. Alas, usually it's Jesse.Back to my point, though. Josie is talking a lot more these days (ie: Dog! Dog barking! Dirty... eww! Love you! Hug! Nice! Snack! Cold! Sleepy! Mousie! Sockies! Sockies on feet! Sadie! Where Sadie?! Blankie! Bath! Diaper! FUN!) although with her, everything is in exclamations... the child is so loud when she talks! I was thinking about it earlier today, and I wonder if
it's because she thinks no one listens to her, because we're always listening to Sadie (who is much easier to understand at this point). Of course, that thought makes me feel guilty. I know that she feels loved... I know that she's smart and she's learning and growing and getting cuter every day, but just because she was born second I don't ever want her to feel second best, you know? Every now and then, I tell her a secret...I lean over and whisper in her ear that she is the very best Josie in the whole wide world and I love her SO much. She always leans back, looks at me with this funny little "I knew it!" look, and says, "Heh heh," then gives me eleven Eskimo kisses on the nose.Anyone who does not know this child or who doesn't spend any quality time with her is certainly missing out... she's a hoot. Her personality, while so different from her sister's, is so unique and just... well... funny! She's an odd little thing, and I don't mean that in a bad way at all... she's just, well, different. For example, she sits in her bed and pinches her nose together over and over. Through the monitor in my room, it goes a little something like this: "Nub-nubbuah-Nubb-nuubb-nubaaa." She loves to flirt with the waiters at Mexican restaurants. I mean, she stares them down, grins at them, and actually winks her little eyes. She waves, smiles, says, "Hey-do!" It's hilarious. She loves to get in things: boxes, the laundry basket, the bathtub, the toybox, the closet, anything she can contort herself enough to squeeze into. This includes the tiny space behind the rocking chair in her room, leading to tiny (yet loud) shouts of "Stuck! Stuck! Help! He-alp!"
Today she put on Sadie's fuzzy pink bedroom shoes (slippers, as they say around here) and wore them around the house. 3 sizes too big, they flap-flap-flapped with every step she took, and she looked a little bit like Big Bird with his giant feet. But she said, "Pretty!" and shot me one of her impish little smiles when I asked her what she was doing as she tried to stuff babywipes in the toes so they would fit better. She seems to find humor in everything... she'll scream with fury one minute, crack up the next. Bi-polar or just easily entertained? I don't know, but I wouldn't change her one bit.
It's so weird... I asked all of my friends/cousins with more than one child how it was possible to love subsequent children as much as the first one. My cousin Heather put it best when she said, "You don't love one more than the other. You love them all the same... but different."
