Bonded

It’s the weekend again, nearly, and Will is going to be gone. I hate these weekends, yet look forward to them at the same time. Usually these weekends involve a fun trip to hometown to stay at the parents’ house. I get to hang out with my mom, dad and the clan. However this weekend I will be staying home. I have way too much to do, and still haven’t even finished reading the chapter I have for my Bio class. I am doing a lab right now (it has to sit for 8 hours, and I put it off until Friday, geesh what is wrong with me!)

It has been a long week, and I just keep thinking Monday is Rhayn’s 5th birthday! FIVE years old?! How did that happen? It surely doesn’t seem like that long ago.

Lately I have also been thinking about the difference in bonding that I have with the girls. Rhayn was not immediate bonding in any way. I felt more like I was babysitting her, and am not sure when the feeling became parenthood, but it surely wasn’t at birth. I had no problem letting her sleep in the other room while I did things, and I had no problem leaving her with my mom or someone while I went out. I have not left Bug, at all, because I can not. I can not imagine letting her sleep alone in a room for any period of time longer than 5 minutes, I prefer she sleep in my arms or in the sling, or next to me. (Rhayn did co-sleep with me/us, so that isn’t different.)

I feel bonded with Rhayn, totally but it is so different. It is so much different. She and I are friends, she is my oldest girl, my helper, my heart. Bug is something totally unlike that. I mean she is still my baby, my girl. But she is my attachment. She is still part of me. Its seamless. With Rhayn it had to grow, it had to be nurtured and cultivated. With Bug, its there, its what it is, and its undeniable.

What is the difference? I think in some ways, it is the homebirth. Bug’s entry into our family ripped me open emotionally, it left me scarred, but it’s a nice kind of scar. Rhayn’s was blasé. Breastfeeding has defiantly helped me bond with her. I am her source of everything. She still needs me more than I ever imagined. Every time I put her to my breast, every time I look down at her munching away happily, legs pumping, I feel joy.

Is this going to affect my relationship with my girls in the future? Is it going to make Rhayn resent me? Or maybe Bug will resent me because I didn’t let her have the independence that Rhayn has. Who knows how it will all turn out, who knows if I will feel like a failure because of my choices, all I know it that for now, I am happy with the choices that I have made, and happy with the choices I am making. I love my girls, and I do love them equally. Maybe when Bug is 5 I will understand how this hasn’t affected my relationship with either.