four.

I’ve got this perfect tiny little human sleeping on me right now. We’re in her nursery and I can hear Eric giving Max his bath. I’m deeply happy. This little family of four we’ve made makes me deeply happy.

Reese is generally an easy baby. She is a joy. She is a lot of work and she snatches away our hopes of a good nights sleep but all of this is so much better than I had feared. Perhaps it’s because with Max we went from zero children to this giant, giant responsibility. This constant obligation that felt so oppressive, especially because he didn’t seem like a child for those first few months. He was a squirmy, lovely little blob who sucked away your soul. There was love for him and a strong desire to protect him, but joy was counterbalanced by all the oppression in that overwhelming life change. That, and he certainly wasn’t easy. Pretty damn difficult, actually. He cut us a huge break by sleeping through the night solidly and consistently at 10 weeks and to this day my boy is a champion sleeper. I think he’s only ever woken in the night 5 times since 10 weeks old and only when very sick.

Reese looks just like her brother did as a newborn. She’s Newborn Max except blonder and a girl. Max was more attractive. Reese is quite cute but she has more funny looking newborn-ness to her than he did. Her eyes are lighter than his were too. She already has the darker ring around a lighter iris and Max’s were pretty solidly grey- blue all over for a few months till they lightened up to the gorgeous blue he has now.

So yeah. I apparently don’t make kids that look like me. My husband’s light genes have trumped mine twice now. But I don’t mind. I’d rather Reese look like her brother than me. I can’t wait to watch her grow.

And Eric and I have hardly squabbled. We’re that cliche when I say we’ve sort of fallen a little bit in love with each other again, but it’s true. He’s such an outstanding father and such an amazing and generous husband it’s hard not to love him more.

Things may get rougher. She may morph into a harder baby as they sometimes do. Max might have more trouble with his new sibling in the coming weeks – as it is now, he sort of ignores her mostly, interspersed with moments of sweetness towards her. Sleep deprivation may catch up to us in ugly ways. Who knows. But this is exactly where I want to be. This is everything. My family of four. Welcome to the world, Reese Winter.