I'll Have Seconds, Please

My younger brother, Ryan, used to lament that there are no pictures of him as a baby. This isn't entirely true, though there are considerably less than there are of me. I decided that if I had two children, I would dedicate much time and effort into getting equal numbers of pictures of them. Into treating them equally. Into making everything equal.

I was, of course, out of my mind.

Jeff and I were perfectly happy so out of that happiness we somehow decided, well, okay, let's throw a third person into this mix. So we went out and made a person.

And then there were three, two of whom were delirious from lack of sleep. But between bouts of frustration, we were perfectly happy, delighting in babydom, watching this tiny and amazing person grow and change and evolve and wanting to capture every possible moment with film (okay, in digital mode). With Jude, the constantly moving critter, most picture from his infancy are of him asleep. Asleep was the only time he stopped moving long enough for us to take a picture.

And we were so perfectly happy that we wanted to do it again. So we went out and made another person.

The mistake, of course, was not in having the second child. He is adored and loved, our little Sully. The mistake was our arrogance for thinking that we had already done this, that this time around it would be easier.

Ha.

We were fools.

Having two children is nothing like having one child. Just when you get to learn the nuances of one child, the second child proves to be just different enough to offer a challenge. Sully slept more and moved slightly less, had less of the manic energy that Jude had.

The picture taking at some point dwindled, though did not disappear completely. It isn't a matter of loving one child more than the other. I can honestly say that I love both children immensely, but I love them very differently. How could I not? They are very different little boys.

Very different from one another and very different from every other member of the human race. But their love for us and for each other is unmistakable. Unconditional. I never really understood that before, this feeling of "I'll love you no matter what."

And I can't help but look at Jude and see a tiny me (complete with all my flaws reflecting back at me) and look at Sully and see a tiny Jeff. But they are more than that. They are my family.

Between bouts of unmedicated mental episodes (a kind way of putting the craziness that befalls me sometimes and which I cannot always control), we are happy. But I still need to work on that whole photo thing. Any times the boys stand next to one another, they climb and wrestle and do other boy-ish things that are unsuitable for capturing on camera.

Oh, boys.

I'm headed off to get a picture of my boys, the ones I love equally, though definitely not the same.