Mothering from Scratch

Welcome to the "On Balance" guest blog. Every Tuesday, "On Balance" features the views of a guest writer. It could be your neighbor, your boss, your most loved or hated poster from the blog, or you! Send me your original, unpublished entry (300 words or fewer) for consideration. Writers need to use their full names. Obviously, the topic should be something related to balancing your life.

By Amy Nathan

When my son was three I became a new mom -- again. What I learned in those first few hours as the mother of two was more than I'd found in any book of maternal expectations. Although I was an expert at being my little boy's mom, when it came to my newborn daughter, I was mothering from scratch.

I considered myself a veteran of the mommy wars. I'd survived preschool admissions and the carpool line. But only a few hours after my second Caesarean, a portly nurse who'd recently had a good night's sleep rolled in Chloe's Plexiglass nursery bassinet. I was blindsided. "She's supposed to be in the newborn nursery so I can rest up," I said candidly, smiling at my bundle of joy swaddled in a hospital blanket and cap. I knew that sleep would be at even more of a premium once we got home and the morphine drip wore off.

"She's keeping the other babies awake," the nurse said. "You need to keep her in here."

How was it that my daughter was causing a commotion at merely four hours old? I felt like I was being hauled into the principal's office. I contemplated my options. Even through my postpartum fog I could see I had none. And then I remembered the serene life formerly known as mine. Zachary, my son, was never at the nexus of an uproar, not even at three years old. Juggling car seats would be the easiest of my upcoming tricks. Having one baby under my belt didn't give me a lick of insight into what this new child would be like or what I'd need to be good at being her mother.

What everyone always said was true -- no two children are the same. What they didn't tell me is that you can't be the same mother to each child. I really thought that aside from buying pink bedding and learning to push a double-stroller down the supermarket aisle, I'd do everything the way I did the first time. How could a second baby's needs be much different? Eat. Sleep. Poop. Repeat. I thought she would be like my son, who napped in the automatic swing while I sang songs, polished my nails and watched my soaps. I would just have to check every so often to make sure she was breathing. That day in the hospital, I learned I was wrong. Her constant crying meant I'd never have to check whether she was breathing.

I learned to sleep on the sofa while Chloe slept in the swing next to me. I learned to wedge a chair next to the dryer so she could nap in her car seat, soothed for a record 20 minutes straight. As she got older I grew accustomed to shuffling her from hip to hip, while I played with her brother, cooked dinner, talked on the phone and folded laundry.

She talked sooner and walked later. Zachary fell asleep to music with the light on. Chloe liked to sleep in quiet darkness. Once she learned to roll over, she never stopped. She made me dizzy -- and she made me laugh.

My daughter taught me a lesson that transcends motherhood. By rocking the baby boat, she taught me to go with the flow. I figured out new ways of doing old things. I learned to go in two directions at once. That was what I could expect as the mother of two. And that was what my kids could rightly expect of me.

Amy Nathan is a writer and mom near Chicago where she lives with Zachary, Chloe and three big dogs.

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  November 27, 2007; 7:00 AM ET  | Category:  Guest Blogs
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