My Dearest Max,

You’re already 3 and a half months and I’m just now writing you your first letter. I hope that years from now, when you’re reading this as an adult, you don’t talk the absence of letters addressed to you as anything other than a lack of enough hours in the day. Who in their right mind would want to be on a stupid old laptop instead of smothering you with kisses? I must confess, I am not strong enough to resist your charms. Who could really pass up those cheeks!?

You are such a good baby and everyday I wake up, wondering what I must have done right in a past life to deserve being your mother. We had a bit of a rough road there for a while with breastfeeding but things are much easier now. You’ve even started to establish a nice little routine, napping when you big brother does and only waking up for a small snack once a night. I know it won’t last forever but I greatly appreciate it now!

Your brother, Jack, has gotten quite attached to you. Sure there are moments when he’s annoyed at the amount of time it takes to nurse all the time but for the most part he’s mostly entertained by you. Jack is already showing you how to sign different objects around the house, I think he wants to talk with you. There are few things I want more than for the two of you to be good friends when you grow up. Someone to play sports with, to share bunk beds with, to have adventures with. Someone to walk this road with you, from beginning to end. Someone who makes the day better with just a simple phone call. Someone like my sisters.

Everyone warned us how hard it was going to be, adding another child into our family of three. I was prepared to deal with all the negative aspects (lack of sleep, sibling jealousy, no time to ourselves, etc). What I wasn’t prepared for was all the good things they don’t tell you. They don’t tell you that the second you see your new baby, your heart doubles in size. All worries of whether you could love him as much as your first just *poof* disappear when you look into their eyes and see the world new again.

They don’t tell you that you will be astonished at how much better at this you are. You’ve been down this road and know where it leads. The unease and unsureness of a first time mother has been replaced with centuries of knowledge and a sense of perspective. If you can diffuse a 2 year old’s tantrum in the middle of the library, you definitely can handle a baby who only really needs to feed, poop or sleep.

No one tells you that you’re going to love being the mother of two kids. That within months, you won’t be able to imagine you life without both of them. No one tells you that you finally feel like you were meant to do this and that you will love every second of it.

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