Poor Second Children.

First time parents are both neurotic and incredibly smug. If one is going to spend countless hours freaking out about being in charge of keeping a completely helpless little blob of person alive, one at least requires the pay off of a decided sense of superiority among fellow parents.

"Oh, I don't let my 15 month old watch T.V. He doesn't even know what Sesame Street is!" (Parent who spent 45 minutes earlier in the day installing coffee table corner bumpers, and who may or may not have caregiving induced IBS, puffs out chest in pride.)

When the second child comes along (and this is as far as my personal life experience has taken me) things become far more focused on survival. A good day ends with both children in bed, still breathing. That's it. "Both kids have a pulse eh? I'm breaking out the bubbly!".

Therefore, the poor second child doesn't experience the same level of developmentally appropriate insulation in the early days. When Payne was a baby, he didn't know what a cartoon was.

Now:


Yeah...

And the hilarious part is that I get frustrated that it doesn't distract her like it distracts her brother. With a three month old Payne I was all "Here! Look at this rattle I'm shaking instead of watching the news!" and now with Genevieve it's more like "WHY WON'T ELMO MAKE YOU STOP CRYING!?".

This attitude goes for toys as well. Payne had almost no noisy toys, and we didn't put batteries in anything that lit up etc... Now we've stuffed them into every single baby toy we can. Everything lights up or makes noises, and she loves it. If a backflipping light up duckie that screams "Camptown Races" in falsetto buys me an extra five minutes while cooking dinner, I'll buy AAs in bulk...and wear ear muffs.

Children are humbling, that much I have learned!