the curse of the second child

I was updating baby books today. I know, crazy right? But yes, the children were napping at the same time and Jeff was away on a fire run, so I had a few moments to myself. I looked lovingly through Audrey’s first. I strolled down memory lane which was enhanced by each of my timely entries about her birth…my initial emotions…her list of firsts! And those entries helped to capture a few of the little moments.

And then I opened Ethan’s book.

Wow! What a difference!

No entry for height and weight since he was 4 months old, no information on his first ear infection, no note about how he went from army crawling to finally the cute perfect baby doll crawl and how I was so concerned because it felt like it took forever… Nothing. Boy did I feel guilty!

I mean I love my son very much! He means as much to me as my daughter. And yet I captured so many of her moments. And I realized once again the huge difference between having only one child and having more than one child. Life is just so different with each additional child. I have had friends comment that the third or fourth child is lucky to even have a baby book. I feel that I am able to experience and savor those moments with Ethan, maybe just not always capture them for documentation.

But I am letting go of the guilt. There are so many things to obsess over and feel guilty about and this is just not an important one. I am also using my amazing smart phone to jot down some of these moments just like I make notes about my life for blog topics.

I will be able to write the story of the “flying sneeze” when I see just those two words someday down the road when I am not living in such a chaotic moment. Most importantly I am trying to savor the time that I have with my family to live in the moment and make as many memories as possible so that when I have the time to immortalize them later I will.

How do you handle life with your children and capturing those moments? What are your areas of mommy guilt and how are you letting go of that guilt?