Second children always get short shrift. I've heard this plenty of times, and I figure it's probably true. I don't know anything about this, of course, because I'm an oldest child, as is my wife, Barbara. In fact, most of our friends (women, in particular) are oldest children. And it seems that, indeed, oldest children tend to marry oldest children (this is true of more than half of our friends, though I hesitate to apply this generalization to society at large). In any case, I have very little knowledge of what it feels like to be a second child, and I don't remember what it was like when my middle brother was born (I was only 21 months old). I remember my youngest brother's birth (I was four), and that wasn't terribly traumatic. Of course, I'd already had more than two years with Matt to get used to the idea of brothers.

So. Number two. Due in a week or two. Still no name. Still an abstract thought, while the very real Max becomes more and more demanding of attention each passing day. We spend most of our time and energy dealing with an almost three-year-old and not nearly enough getting ready for a baby. Though we're not completely unprepared. I did install the infant seat into Barbara's car yesterday.

I recall that I didn't cook at all the last three weeks before Max's birth. Chinese, pizza, Vietnamese, Thai, Bojangles, whatever. Barbara would come home from work, I'd be sitting on my butt without supper made and so eventually we went and bought some.

I am cooking occasionally now--if you're willing to call yanking pot pies (store-bought) from the freezer and throwing them in the oven for 45 minutes "cooking." I did make quesadillas last night, but I think that simply strengthens my point--and anyway, tonight we scored some Chinese. It was inevitable. There is a certain sort of battle-weary lethargy that strikes both mom and dad as the birth of a child approaches. Before Max, we could just sit back and be lazy. If we wanted supper at midnight, we could get it (well, restaurants here don't stay open that late. So we couldn't. But in theory...). These days supper must be ready by seven so that Max doesn't climb the walls with hunger. And we can't really relax until he's asleep at 8:30 or nine. By then, it's almost time for Barbara to go to bed, and so there's very little time to get anything done for the little whippersnapper.

Luckily, we know #2 will be a boy (though, as you may have surmised, we are nowhere near settling on a name), and he can wear the same clothes that Max did. We are going to try and keep the baby in our room for a couple months (Max absolutely hated sleeping anywhere near us, and after a week he went into his own room) or maybe even until it sleeps through the night. We really don't want Max waking up two or three times a night, though he probably will anyway. Babies aren't exactly considerate of other people's needs.

Indeed, most of our preparation for the new baby has been to try and help Max understand what is going on. It helps that many of his friends have little brothers and sisters, and he is very excited about the prospect of a baby in the house (he loves babies, and can spend hours--this is not an exaggeration--simply looking at them). He wasn't happy to hear that his baby brother would, indeed, have the same mommy and daddy as he does, but after about a week he assimilated that knowledge and seems content enough now. We don't know how he'll react to the real thing...and the knowledge that we can't really predict what he'll do at any particular time is probably the scariest thing any parent has to accept.

Still, we're pretty sure he'll be fine. We'll be haggard and worn-out, of course, and that ought to lead to plenty of unnecessary fireworks with Max. But there's no getting around that, and with enough medication we all ought to survive.

As for all the little things, well, we did most of them. Barbara got our photo albums reasonably up-to-date, we bought a new playpen (which will double as the baby's bed for a month or two), I re-started the cloth diaper service and we'll almost certainly remember to call our pediatrician and let her know that there will be another child in the practice. Lots more, too, but right now I'm a bit too tired to remember them.

So we're ready. Ready as can be, I suppose. Well, probably not, but who cares? The baby will come no matter what we do. And so we anxiously await the joy and wonder of a new birth--one that we hope is a bit less eventful than Max's. Then the sleep depravation. Then the departure of sanity, just in time for Christmas. And maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to poke our heads out of the sand by the time pitchers and catchers report.

After a month of watching dreary Royals results come in, I'll want to put my head back in the sand. But no matter. Life will go on. More life. Under my roof. To be fed by us. To be raised by us. Puking, pooping, teething and, above all, screaming.

Oh yeah. This was a really good idea.

Jon Worley isn't lamenting the loss of his freedom. He can't remember having it in the first place.