Tallulah Rose

Tallulah Rose is a peaceful child, except when she is angry. She starts out so politely, moving her arms and legs, then makes a few little noises, then we graduate to a quiet cry, then a loud one, then a scream and then what I like to call the silent scream of rage. It is unfortunate, but she gets to the silent scream of rage because she is the second child, and is often put aside in order for me to cook, clean or deal with an almost three year old who has taken to ordering me about like she is a grumpy, old, overweight person on a little rascal from Porter and I am a waitress at the Golden Corral. But she is patient, because she is the second child and does make her initial demands in a very polite manner.

Because she is the second child she lives in a bassinet in our room. She has no real nursery, no table made by her grandpa,chairs made by her great grandmother, and certainly not 5 handmade baby quilts--just a really cute corner of the guestroom, that I can't bring myself to put her in, because it is so far away and because she is the second child, my last baby, she can stay in our room for as long as she fits in the bassinet (perhaps longer if I can convince H to bring the crib downstairs.)

Because she is the last baby, she does not have to cry herself to sleep. The first one needed to learn to sleep on her own, before I went back to work and I was very Tiger Mom about it, putting her in the crib and walking off to the living room and where H and I would huddle together, and try to reassure ourselves we were doing the right thing while we listened to her cry until she stopped. But not my last baby. My last baby has been cuddled and coddled and pacified and nursed to sleep, and now just drifts off on her own with nary a tear.

She is a very social child and will fuss if she is in a room by herself. She likes to be part of the ruckus, especially where her sister is. She loves her sister and has a special smile reserved just for Annabelle. And whenever I grouse about how it isn't fair to her about the nursery, the lack of picture taking, grandma time, and attention in general she gets, Hyphen will say in that way he sometimes has of making everything better "yes, that is true, but she has something that Annabelle never had, she has a big sister who loves her."

My last baby gave me my most favorite Christmas present, a real true social smile. She was only a month old. Annabelle didn't smile until she was two months old, and then did it just once and for Hyphen, not me. Tallulah smiles and coos all the time (except during the silent scream of rage) for anyone who looks at her, but especially for me. She can also roll over from front to back and back to front. Just like Annabelle, when she is excited about something, she kicks her legs about, but Annabelle didn't start doing this until she was about 5 months old.

And the jury is still out on who she looks like. About half say Hyphen and Annabelle, the other half say me. Personally, I think that when she smiles and lifts her eyebrows, she looks like Jack Nicholson, which causes me to say "come out, come out, where ever you are," but I am a little crazy from lack of sleep.

But no matter, she is Tallulah Rose, my second child, my last baby, who makes her own way in this world, and in my heart.