The First Time You Have a Second

Everything about your first child was...a first. All of your experiences as a parent, from minute one to year one, were had with fresh, green, nervous eyes. Even if you had already enjoyed the beauty of changing a diaper, you had never changed your own child's diaper. And you'd probably never changed a newborn's diaper. Remember when you learned about and saw and cleaned up the black, gooey, poop-ish stuff in that itty bitty diaper? By now, you may have forgotten that the official name for that stuff is meconium. I did.

The second time around, those eyes are a bit wiser. You've seen some. You'll be able to change that meconium filled diaper with one hand and one wipe, blindfolded. You won't be as nervous when he or she gets a cold because, by now, your firstborn has had 500 colds. You're wiping your firstborn's nose as you read this post. You have the ability to pump while making dinner, talking on the phone and watching The Bachelor.

Speaking of The Bachelor, if you don't know who this is(shame on you),
this is Andi Dorfman. And after she reamed out the current Bachelor
for saying "It's Okay" too much (among other annoying habits),
she's the frontrunner for becoming the next Bachelorette. 
image source Andi Dorfman Twitter (@AndiDorfman)

Frankly, second time around, it's going to be a less scary, less difficult journey because you know what's up. Well, maybe not entirely. If you have a sibling, you know that you and your sibling have a couple differences. For starters, you're a she and he's a he. Your interests are different, your sizes are different, your appetite and taste for spicy food are different. And your personalities - they're different too. You're slow to warm up, he commands the spotlight. You're a talker, she's a listener. He tells the jokes, you laughs.

Your second born won't be an exact clone of your firstborn, so your experience won't be exactly the same. All that practice and conditioning from your firstborn won't necessarily be applicable to your second born. Your first might have been a marathon and your second might be more like a sprint. They're both races, but require different muscles and different skills. This isn't to say that you're not a seasoned parent. You are seasoned. You are a pro. You will have many "I got this" moments. But, you may also have a few "Never seen that before..." moments.

Even though you're having a second baby, you're still going to have plenty of firsts.