A FRIEND of mine is pregnant with her second child. The gap between her two kids will be about 20 months; similar to the gap between the two Marr girls. I applaud her decision to have her kids so close together and in her case it was a conscious decision. I’d like to say we made a similar conscious decision, a teenage handful of years ago, but it just happened. I just ended up pregnant again.
So she has been asking me what it was like, those first couple of years with two tiny ones, and at the risk of putting the fear of death into her, I have been trying to explain. Of course my memories are clouded by the intervening Noughties, by the haze of early-motherhood-induced sleeplessness, and by the euphoria of knowing I will never do it again, but I have tried to be fair and realistic.
It is eminently sensible to have all your so-called "nappy years" at once; the paraphernalia that goes with nappy changing – the nappies themselves, the changing mat, the nappy sacks, the cream – is all still all over the house; you just need to remember to put the right size of nappy onto the right bottom. And if she is lucky, as we have been, her kids will grow up to be great friends; their own self-contained unit of entertainment, which is especially useful on holiday.
I glossed over the tricky issue of potty training – especially as the toddler always urgently needed to wee just as the baby started a feed (no coincidence there) - but I did recommend that the only way to cope was with a stack of at least 20 pairs of toddler pants, as all of them would be needed within the first 48 hours. And I also glossed over the hassle of Christmas shopping with tantrums and a double buggy; she won’t have to worry about that for another year yet.
But what I did try and explain was something which, if I had only looked at my own siblings, is startlingly obvious. And it is this; your second baby is not the same as your first. This lesson hit home with me the night Daughter #2 was born. There we were, three in the morning in Raigmore hospital, a ward of six new mums and babies. And one baby was crying, and its mum was doing nothing to comfort it. Eventually a nurse came to sort out the errant mother; and that mother was me. I hadn’t recognised my newborn’s scream; I had assumed she would sound just like my first.
And as the differences started, so they have continued; different attitudes to friends, to sharing toys, to school work, to music and clothes, and different attitudes to Christmas presents. Because Daughter #1 has no idea what she would like for Christmas this year; she says she has everything she needs. "Just a surprise", she said. So the pressure is immense.
But Daughter #2, while she has just as much stuff in her bedroom, has compiled a list. This list is not only comprehensive, with catalogue numbers and prices, it is cross-referenced in alphabetical order, and arranged by potential donor. Which makes everything just so unbelievably easy.
I can’t envy my friend everything about the next few years; they will be fun, but exhausting. But I do envy her the next few Christmases; there’s no way I will get away with handing over a cardboard box full of balloons as a Christmas surprise any more.
