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.

this is what 28 months of baby clothes looks like.

my beloved wife saved every single piece of clothing sparklet has ever worn, because she was absolutely certain we’d be having a girl. now that we (at least temporarily) think we’re having a boy, we have six or eight tubs of girl cloths that could be looking for a new home.

i’m horrified — how can a child possible wear all those clothes in a little over two years?

mommy started getting contractions this morning around 4am, and we immediately jumped into our great baby action plan — and by immediate, i mean when she finally woke me up at 6:15am. and, after we stopped for mcdonalds at 7:00am.

but the rest of the plan went off without a hitch. we dropped sparklet with the talimo’s and sped off to sibley for admission, a beautiful corner room, a two hour nap, and a doctor’s official diagnosis of pre-term Braxton Hicks contractions.

so, false alarm.

in unrelated news, i’ve now programmed sibley into the GPS, because in all the excitement i completely forgot how to get to the hospital. again.

and, i got two quality hours with my kindle while mommy napped. i had kind of forgotten what it was like to have time to read — even though i understand it’ll probably be short lived.

the nesting continues…

in the aftermath or Thing Two’s second X chromosome turning out to be a Y, the biggest shift has been in his room. No longer satisfied with peach walls, plum carpets and floral patterns, we’re in the process of repainting and redecorating.

(I’ve also set aside the “Madeline” wall sign — though, admittedly, I’m not throwing it out until “he” pops out and I get the official confirmation.)

Part of the bedroom reorg is that the white french provincial furniture we inherited from my grandparents is now going into sparklets room (above, top) and sparklet’s slightly more gender neutral furniture is sliding into Thing Two’s room in substitution (above, underneath).

We’re also painting both their rooms a light green — there by reducing the 137 things they’ll argue about some day to a more manageable 136.

This argument reduction effort was actually kicked off last week when I saw a “Thing Two” decal in Target that sparklet and I eventually put on his bedroom door. It was officially the first time I saw something in wanted for one child that made me say “oh, crap — what am I going to buy for the other.” Fortunately, there was a stack of Sesame Street decals (with sparklet favorite Abby Cadabby) on the next display over.

That might bring the list down to 135 1/2.