Thalia never slept. This much is well-documented. Very well-documented. (New Girl, I feel your pain. Truly. )

Thalia needed to be swaddled and bounced and rocked and jiggled and held and swung around and sung to, then swung some more, jiggled and rocked and bounced and bounced again and then maybe swaddled some more after all that jiggling and rocking and bouncing and swinging. It was a bitch. And I didn’t even have nice triceps to show for it when all was said and done. Just your standard sleep deprivation signs: Eye bags, sallow skin, short fuse, faulty brain…you know the drill.

Sage is her own girl.

She likes to sleep, sometimes even long enough to let me catch up on a couple hours of Top Chef late in the dark of my bedroom late at night. She doesn’t fuss. She doesn’t cry for six hours a day, which I had just assumed was something that all babies did.

It’s all made me realize that Thalia was

(colicky.)

I never said those words out loud until recently. I couldn’t. Proclaiming that Thalia had (colic) was like saying she was somehow lesser than other babies. And I’d be having none of that.

I think at times I’ve been afraid to write about how good, how easy, how delightful Sage has been (and she has been) in her first three months, for fear that it would somehow diminish my firstborn in the process. I admit that Thalia lives her life on a bit of a pedestal ’round these parts–her shortcomings are quirks, her challenges are mere idiosyncrasies. Isn’t that the birthright of the first child? It’s not that I’m like one of those crazed parents who expects perfection at every turn. One quick glance at the crap strewn about our apartment and you’d dismiss that notion outright. It’s more like: I’m okay with my daughter’s imperfections as long as they’re the imperfections that I’m okay with.

I’ll take skinny and picky and athletically inept but you keep your colic, Mister.

So now Thalila’s got this sweet, easy, narcoleptic of a sister to come along and cast her in a different light, a more true light, halogen-style, which in some ways dashes The Legend of Thalia, the superchild who was born smiling.

She’s still the superchild. The superchild who survived (colic).

I love you sweetheart, but throwing is not your forté.