the difference between the first child and the second child is that the first gets a social media strategy. the second gets a blog post on day nine which tries to summarize what’s happened so far:

• robert quinn parker was born on march 30, 2012 at sibley memorial hospital in D.C.. the biggest news is that he is, in fact, a boy.
• he was born two weeks early (first pictures are here) and still clocked in at 8 lbs, 12 ounces and 21 inches. needless to say, mommy is very happy that he didn’t make it to full term.
• the story behind his name merits its own blog post but for now let’s say that we couldn’t decide which “robert” nickname to use so we’re calling him “rory” around the house. (it’s a long story, but at least we didn’t stick with madeline.)
• for blogging purposes, we’ve dubbed him “the mighty quinn.” we’d been calling him “thing two” during the pregnancy, but decided sparklet is going to dominate his life anyway so using a second reference to her as a name for him was just piling on.
• for those pop culture illiterates among us, “the mighty quinn” is a reference to a bob dylan song calledquinn the eskimo — which actually predates the more popular manfred man version by 18 months.
• the mighty quinn is everything we expect from a boy — a heavy eater and a binge sleeper — and sparklet is turning out to the best big-sister in the world.
• lastly, it is NOT true that you take fewer pictures with the second child — and i know because i counted (94 for sparklet’s first 10 days, 228 for the mighty quinn’s).

i will say that blogging is a bit more of a challenge, with the pooping baby, the post-op wife, and the overly energetic two year old conspiring against me getting any quality “alone” time with the blog machine. at this rate, i expect to blog again in the summer of 2029.

for what it’s worth, i go back to work tomorrow morning, but mommy is staring down the barrel of another 14 weeks of maternity leave and we’ve got the texas grandparents arriving soon with the virginia grandparents coming back after that.

that’s it from here — further bulletins as warranted.