The Second Child - A Different Perspective

I have a slightly different view of the "second child" than our friend Gabrielle (see here: http://culturednativity.blogspot.com/2008/06/second-place-revelations.html) Granted I am in COMPLETE agreement of the first child syndrome...I am also one and I am watching history repeat itself in my first born daughter - Holy Cow, Look Out. However, the second child thing is going a little different for me. For one, he's a boy. There were no boys in my family growing up, just my dad and he was already grown. So I am going into this "boy thing" totally blind AND he is the "second child". Does this mean different things when you have two different sexes? As far as my mothering goes...V gets a lot more undivided attention than S ever did. She got trucked all around and dropped off here and there and watched a TON of Baby Einstein movies so that Mommy could keep working. Well, there is no more of that silly work business so V gets Mommy, all day, every day. And I have not plopped him in front of movie yet and he's 7 months old. Am I going to turn him into a mama's boy? Let's hope not! But there are some other firsts that kid number 2 gets that kid number 1 never did. V has nice bisphenol-A free baby bottles, S had nothing but baby bottles chock full o' bisphenol-A. S breast fed and then had regular formula. V breast fed and then had only organic formula, which made him completely constipated and I had to switch him to regular formula (at least I tried, right?). S ate mostly organic baby food, but if they were out, I would just get whatever they had. For V, I made organic homemade baby food (never had the time the first time around). Did he enjoy it, did I feel the satisfaction of feeding my precious baby something that was not processed in a factory? No, he gagged and then threw everything up. NICE. I am chalking that up to "it is not as smooth as the store bought stuff, we'll freeze it and save it for later when he is eating chunkier food." Does anyone want to place bets on how long that organic homemade with love baby food is going to be taking up space in my freezer? Anyone? I went shopping today and stocked up on some lovely organic mass produced baby food. Maybe this is how the "second kid" gets the stigma, the mom tries and then gives up because the "second kid" is just uncooperative! I'll go ask my husband, he's a second kid...combined youngest for a while and then became the middle kid...which could explain A LOT!