The 3rd Child

You know what I love about having a third child?

#1:  I value our time together a little more than I did with the previous two because I know how quickly it goes. When I lay him down each night, I take it all in because I know when he wakes in the morning, he'll look different. He will have grown up a a little bit more. If I blink, I might miss something. And I don't want to miss anything! Even as the baby is suffering through his first cold and fever of his short little life, even though he's waking us up every hour (Or as Brad says, "It's pretty hard to say he's "waking us up" when we never even get the chance to go back "down"), there is such a tenderness in the wee hours of the morning. As his fever broke around midnight and he was wide awake and the happiest he had been in about 48 hours, he was pure sweetness. I couldn't turn away, I couldn't force him to go back to bed. I just laid on the floor with him and listened to his coos and gurgles. This too shall pass. And I don't want to miss it.

#2: I don't worry as much (or maybe at all!). I don't rush him to the pediatrician at the first sign of a fever, I don't bundle him up as if we live on the North Pole, I know that letting him cry for a few minutes is not going to hurt him nor make him reject me. I don't worry about development anymore. When other babies his age are reaching their milestones faster than him, I know it will come...All flowers bloom in their own time...And, he, too, will grow into his own in his own time.

#3: Probably the most important lesson I've learned is one the older kids have taught me and it's the one I value above all else. Each child is born with their own personality. Their own unique way of seeing the world. And no matter how much I may have envisioned them differently or thought our personalities would mesh better one way or another, I have realized I can do nothing to change who they are. I just have to let go and ride the wave and find the little things about each of them that I love. And when you focus on all the little things you love, you stumble upon something big...