Little baby girl

This is insane. It's hard for me to understand how it is possible that the little tiny wrinkled bug-eyed beautiful baby we named Susanna is about to be a year old. I know that there's nothing more predictable for a parent to say than "I can't believe it's been a year" when this happens. I know, I know, I'm nothing new here. But I guess what is really getting to me is just how different Susanna's first year has felt than Lea's did. Lea's first year, as I tell people all the time, felt like a lifetime, in good and bad ways, and it actually makes perfect sense when I think about it, because it WAS my entire mothering lifetime. This time, it's all pretty familiar (again, in good and bad ways). That doesn't mean it's all been easy, of course.

What has been easier than I expected:
-Sibling adjustment issues, months 0-9. Really, during that time, there was exactly one epic tantrum that I could trace directly to Lea's totally animal-like jealousy of her sister. They had both fallen asleep in the car, and when we got home, it became clear that Susanna needed to nurse immediately. But Lea was also uncharacteristically cuddly, and asked, forcefully, for me to hold her like a baby. I just couldn't. Susanna was tiny and she was starving, and Lea lost her freaking mind. It was like nothing I've ever seen from her, before or since. But that was it. One time. The rest of those early months were pretty smooth sailing. Whenever anyone asked about it, my honest answer was that Lea was doing GREAT with having a new baby around.
-Incorporating baby into everyday activities. Two things: I had a better sense of what kinds of activities were worth attempting with a baby in tow (not, for instance, volunteering at the ASP office in Johnson City). Also, Susanna loves her some lap time. She would happily just sit with me and watch the world go by, sometimes for 45 minutes or more, at a coffee shop or friend's house. How about that.
-Nursing. We had exactly the same problems I had early on with Lea-- oversupply, super-fast overactive letdown, just way too much milk way too fast. I know, of course, that this is a good problem to have, as supply-related problems go-- provided you know that that's what the problem is. If not (as it was for me the first time around, when nobody could figure out what the deal was), it can be mystifying. Why is she acting so hungry? Her belly's full! Why is she pulling off the second she latches on? She's starving! I know that if external conditions had been somewhat different with Lea, I would have strongly considered giving up. This time, the problem was solved so quickly, and since then it's been smooth sailing. No mastitis, no thrush, good steady supply.
-Feeling confident. Maybe this is obvious, but I did pleasantly surprise myself many times throughout this year, when it has occurred to me that I just did not give a crap about what some other person, parent or not, thought of the way I was parenting. I've stopped visiting a number of online parenting communities that had been bringing me small amounts of camaraderie in exchange for a lot of zealotry, and in turn a lot of self-doubt for me. And I've stopped not because I felt like I needed to cut myself off, but I just wasn't interested anymore. (Having in-person friends helps, certainly.)


What has been harder than I expected:
-Sibling adjustment issues, months 9-12. As soon as Susanna grew interested enough in Lea's toys, and mobile enough to get to them, bad bad bad things ensued. Oh man. We're turning the corner, I think, but I think the most uttered sentence in our household for a while now has been "Susanna's getting into my STUFF!" (Um, ok, no, probably the most uttered sentence has been "My God I'm tired.") We've also put the girls into a shared bedroom, which has proved complicated, and even though Lea seems to sleep through Susanna's frequent nighttime screamfests, I do worry that her quality of sleep is suffering. Ugh.
-Sleep. But I'm just going to leave it at that, because I'm annoying myself with how much I go on and on about how bad it is. It will get better.
-Food. Susanna seems to have a much more sensitive system than Lea, so when we introduce new solid foods, she often has pretty significant digestive issues (which I've long suspected contribute to the sleep woes). There are times when I start to relate more than I ever expected to the exclusively-nurse-for-as-long-as-possible crowd (see online zealotry, above). As recently as last week, I've found myself wondering if she might be better off if her diet was still 95% breastmilk and just a few other very bland foods. Poor belly. Poor baby.
-Feeling at peace with the passage of time. Oh, lord. This is hitting me hard. I admit to being a tad smug when Lea's first birthday approached and I thought, "WTF do all those other mothers freak out about? It's a birthday! It's a happy thing!" Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Lea was already so ambitious about doing new things, doing things on her own, so the new chapters were pretty much exclusively a relief. All sweet, very little bitter. Susanna, my lap buddy, wears BABY pretty comfortably. And of course, I'm pretty comfortable with that too. It's gratifying, I'll admit. She still really needs me and I feel so good to be able to meet her (still pretty baby-like) needs. I do look forward to her increased independence in some ways-- mostly in the ways that will make it easier, someday, for her and Lea to play together at a similar level. But mostly, yes, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this first huge good-bye to her babyhood.

Good-bye, zero-year-old. See you soon, sweet gap-toothed, thumb-sucking, about-to-walk, belly-laughing one-year-old. Sleep well.