I was born the second child…

Yeah. So. I have a few things for today. I would like to say I feel like I am living someone else’s life right now. It feels foreign and odd. It’s not necessarily bad. It’s just…like…not about me and that’s probably a good thing. It’s weird to work from home, but feels like what I should be doing. I don’t miss the classroom that much right now. So it’s maybe best that I take a break from teaching. Not a long one. Just to figure some stuff out. It doesn’t feel like giving up. I have a reason to take a year off. I’ll get to it.

Something I often think about is how I was treated as a kid. As the second child. I was also a lot like the first with the 12 year age gap.

It was a lot like getting told by a mom, dad and a 12 year older sibling that I need to stop crying. That when is the good version of me going to come out today instead of the bad version and that the Kennel Man will come and take me away if I’m bad at various theme parks or public places. They’d find some abandoned fence area to show me that’s where the bad kids go and I believed them. There’s still parts of Disneyland that I can see where they told me bad kids go and a park in Ashland that has some sheds that I still would think of when they told me that’s where bad kids go. Being a second child for me wasn’t the same as others. I didn’t have to share my toys and I played in a closet by myself a lot…while my mom was freaking out about something or my dad was cheating on her or at work in the summer.

I think they did the best they could with who they were and are. I have to remember that and not just remember the things that made me insecure and the things that mace me feel like I really wasn’t anyone who could do anything cool in life. My behavior was always an issue, it seemed. I was always crying about something or stubborn or snippy. I think I know why.

Anyway.

My son won’t ever know what the Kennel Man is and he won’t be asked when will the good version of him come out and the bad one go away. I won’t do that to my second child either. My second child and I have some things in common. We are born second in the family. And I know nothing of who they are. Their gender. I know that they’re going to be here in May. I don’t even know how to wrap my head around it. I want to try to be happy and as involved as I was with my first…but also COVID has really put some issues on appointments and Dustin can’t go to most. Pretty much all. I have to do this alone…when talking to the doctor that I will have to use my words with. The second child isn’t a do-over, but I for sure will hope for a different birth outcome. And I think I’ll get one because I won’t be a bystander. I will actually voice what I want to happen.

So yeah. I was made fun of a lot in my family as the youngest and then I got in trouble for getting upset about it. We will not use sarcasm or teasing to deal with our kids. Dustin doesn’t use sarcasm anyway and I have drastically stopped using it because it’s pointless and not nice.

So I’ve learned a lot. I’m learning still. Every day is a day to do better for you kid and if you mess up there’s hopefully tomorrow.

That’s it really.