Jason and I are both the youngest of two siblings, and I have always wondered if there was anything to all the theorizing and pontificating that people spout about birth order.   I couldn’t tell that there was a helluva lotta difference between the way my parents treated my sister and me, so it didn’t really seem like a big deal.

Now that I have a second child, I may be changing my mind.   I absolutely treat Alana differently than I treated G.   It’s not that I am disinterested, per se, just less interested.   It’s more of a ho-hum experience, like, yeah, I remember that she should be doing X about now, I guess everything’s OK.   Compare that to our experience with G, where I knew what the milestones were for everything, and anxiously awaited G’s arrival at each of these important life events:

Some examples:

With G:   “Look!   she can hold hold up her head!   Let’s get a video!

With Alana:   “Seems like she has been holding up her head for awhile now…wonder when that started happening?”

With G:   “She smiled at me!   Get the camera!”

With Alana:   “Look!   She’s gassy!   Watch out or she’ll puke on you!”

With G:   “She’s watching her mobile!   Get the camera!”

With Alana:   “She’s watching her mobile!   Maybe that will distract her for awhile so I can shower!”

So maybe oldest kids do grow up to be self absorbed egomaniacs and youngest kids become serial killers cause their parents don’t love them enough.   This absolutely explains why youngest kids never have baby pictures of themselves.