And then there were two.

on her due date, originally uploaded by Reid Pierce.

When Sawyer walked into the hospital room to visit us, I hardly recognized him. He seemed, suddenly, so big and so old. With the flick of a wand, he wasn't my baby anymore. I had no idea that would happen. The nurse had warned me. It happened with hers. But I didn't understand what she meant until my firstborn pranced into the room with his comedy routine. It was like looking at a stranger. (His head is so big. He barley fits in that size 4 diaper. He's so heavy. His shoes are so clunky. When did he start doing that?) He wouldn't even come near me and the baby, clinging to my mom frantically as she tried to put him on the bed with me. He played peekaboo through the bed slats, but that's as close as he wanted to be. In an instant, I felt like all the love and energy I had been pouring into this little person for the past 18 months got sucked up into a vortex and was hanging, suspended, above us, in delicate limbo. My sole focus in the 48 hours from the time I had walked into the hospital to the time Sawyer appeared had been toward the little helpless amoeba in my arms. And, suddenly, I wasn't sure how I was going to create enough love, space and time for two.

Nearly a week later, I'm still not sure. The thing about having two children is that you don't divide your love in half, you double it. But, for me at least, it hasn't been instantaneous. Sawyer has accepted Arden, warily. Every day she's here he seems to embrace her more. We've placed a little stool near the pack-and-play so he can climb up and peer into the bassinet. He points and says "sister." I have no idea if he understands that concept, but it brings crocodile tears to my eyes (then again, everything does these days). He brings me her burp cloth when he sees it carelessly lying more than five feet from me. And in the biggest test of them all, he found Arden's Nuk sitting in her bouncy chair without her. He picked it up and first ran it over to her bassinet. Not finding her there he ran to me, found her snoozing in my lap and reached up to put the Nuk into her mouth - all without trying to suck on it himself. Success! He's completely forgotten his own addiction. (She doesn't seem to love the Nuk as much as he did.)

I find, now, that I have to make time for one-on-one with each kid. I need to get down on the floor with Sawyer and focus completely on him. I also have to kick back with Arden, just cuddling her when she's not fussing, eating or getting changed. And then there many moments when I am juggling them both, feeding Arden on the couch while acknowledging Sawyer's latest triumph.

It's a delicate thing, all that love, swirling above us in a giant vortex, multiplying, apt to come crashing down at any moment, engulfing us.