you are my sunshine

A couple of days ago my sweet little girl finally started singing the song "You are My Sunshine." This is the song I sang to her every night as I lulled her to sleep as a small baby, and then every night as I tucked her in as she got older. She has been singing the words to her ABC's, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and many songs by Bruno Mars for some time now but would never sing this one, that was until she heard me singing it to Marinn as I put her to sleep. Her little face lit up as she recognized the song and cheerfully chimed in and helped me sing and applauded when the song was over.

It's the best feeling to see her sing to Marinn, poking at her belly during the line, "you are my sunshine" and singing, "please don't take my Marinn away." I knew before I was ever pregnant that I wanted more than one child. I wanted them to experience the special depth of friendship that exists between siblings, especially sisters. I love how openly Amelia has welcomed Marinn into her life. She wakes every morning and looks for her and tells her good morning and how much she missed her and how cute she is. She is eager to show Marinn her toys and dance and sing in front of her and smashes her face against hers and whispers secrets into her ears.

When Andy and I found out we were expecting our second child one of our biggest concerns was how we would divide our time between two children. I loved all the time that I got to spend with Amelia. I got to wake up every day and spend all of my time loving on that sweet baby girl. I took a million pictures, heard every sigh, sneeze, or whimper. I oohed and awed over every smile, read to her, sang to her, and gave her all of my attention. I knew to the day how old she was, how much she weighed, how many diapers she used in a day. There wasn't one thing about her day that I wasn't there for during the first year of her life. As she got older there still wasn't much I missed and we spent our days playing with toys, reading books, coloring, or doing chores around the house. I was fearful of how a new baby would make her feel as my time and attention would have new demands on it. I was also concerned by the fact that dividing my time would mean I wouldn't have every moment to spend soaking up each little thing with the new baby. This is probably much like the feelings of most parents when their second child arrives, however that doesn't make the feelings and fears subside.

Since Marinn joined our family there is a whole new dynamic in our home. As we anticipated, things with baby number two is much different but that doesn't make it bad, as a matter of fact I think it's better. We may not keep a record of every little thing but that is because our days are filled with too many to keep track of. We don't have every minute to spend with Marinn, but Marinn has an adoring older sister showering her with love and attention. I have come to terms with not being able to do things exactly the same with Marinn as I did with Amelia because they are two different people. Just as Marinn will never know what is is like to have my undivided attention all the time, Amelia will never know what it is like to have a big sister to look up to.  One thing we do is try to make time with each girl separately every day to remind them how important they are to us and we also take time all together and show them the value they hold as a part of our family, something we feel is just as important as knowing their individual worth. And we end every night with our song:

You are my sunshine,

my only sunshine

You make me happy,

when skies are gray

You'll never know dear,

how much I love you

So please don't take

my sunshine away