Douglas Blaine

Dear Coraline,

You have been a month with us so far and there really isn’t much to tell. You started out at 6.6875 lbs and 19.5 inches and now you are 8.375 lbs and 22.5 inches–mom is skeptical about the length, but there is plenty of squirming.

You do things differently than your sister and that’s mainly what I am here to talk about.

Tessa got to live in a world without you for 15 months, but you will always live in a world with her. I want to assure you that I will always strive to not make comparisons between you two. No, “Tessa walked at 10 months, why can’t you?” or “Tessa got A’s in math, but you can’t even get a C?” It’s just not fair to do that or to think that way.

A couple other things I will avoid:

• referring to you as my ’second daughter’ and her my ‘first daughter’
• referring to you as little sister or her as big sister

Now that doesn’t mean I won’t ever say you are the second born or her the first, but I won’t introduce you that way at first. My aim here is to outwardly force myself to choose words that allow you to be your own person and not to be defined by comparison to another and to therefore have my brain operate the same way.

Here is what I know about you so far:

• you are wrinkly
• your head is round
• your eyes follow my face or fingers without turning your head
• you have long feet (I am seriously thinking of calling you ‘Rabbit’)
• you don’t drool alot
• your hair is a dark blonde, like mine I think

I am really looking forward to getting to meet you as you grow older.

Dad