What's Behind Door Number Two?

Our second child...the thought seems crazy, but now three months into crazy, it seems almost unimaginable that we might not have done this.  Two girls, and a lifetime (at least all of theirs) to shape them.  Already they seem different, but the same.  Zoey, who came first, is precocious and confident...kind and pensive, but adventurous.  Maggie, the happiest child alive, is a bundle of smiles and incessant talking, her eyes more penetrating than even Zo's were, and Zo's were impressively burrowing.  Zoey is smart, and not just by her own parents gushing standards, by her teachers and the innocent, unsuspecting witnesses to her intelligence.  She's intuitive and observant and oh-so curious.  Maggie seems not far behind, a very perceptive and examining infant.  Her world seems much larger than I recall Zoey absorbing.  Maggie is aware and reacts to everything.

Two children.  Sometimes it's difficult to imagine that I'm the father of even one.  This second has tripped me into a new world of confidence and purpose, of self-awareness and ambition.  I wonder where I found inspiration before this?  It's a strange thing, this parenting business.  I find myself wishing for things that I had never even dreamt of before, and imagining a future that spans decades not just tomorrow.  I fall in love every day, and that was something I wasn't prepared for.  It's harder to lie to myself, or shrug off what used to seem meaningless.  Everything matters now.

Our second child has changed me, perhaps even more than the first.  Now I've got two reasons to be better than I ever thought I could be. Three, if we count all of the women in this house.