Autumn's grandparents are excited to see her, and they are well within their rights to be so. With her being their first grandchild, and this being her first Christmas, they went all out in the gift department. This is fine with me, for a number of reasons. The rational side of my brain likes this strictly from a financial point of view, as all the toys and clothes that they've bought for her are, in all honesty, less that I'll have to buy later on. However, I think I'll have to charter a separate airplane just to haul all this stuff back home, and once we are home, look into pricing an addition to the condo. On the other side, doing this makes the grandparents feel great, and how can I argue with that. I can't... believe me, I've tried.

This brings me to the issue of "Can children being spoiled by grandparents?" I've checked around and the general consensus is a resounding "No." Apparently, it is a grandparent’s right to spoil the grandkids. After all, my grandparents did the same to us when we were young. My mom once said to me, half-jokingly, "The only reason I had kids was so I could one day have grandkids."

I thought about that statement, and in all honesty, it made a lot of sense. Grandparents get to do all the fun stuff with children and don't have to worry about all the not-so-fun stuff. They can go to the zoo, have a picnic, buy toys for the child, but at the end of the day, not worry about how a wound-up child is ever going to go to sleep. Sounds like a good deal to me. Personally, I can't wait. But since Autumn is only 8 months old now, and won't be having any "relations" with males until she is well into her 30s, I've got a while to wait. But, hey, no time like the present to think about the future.

The other issue that this raises is, "Will the second child be treated in the same light?" I have two brothers and I have to say that our grandparents went all out to treat us relatively fairly. However, as the middle child, I always somehow managed to get a slightly shorter end of the proverbial stick. This makes me a tad nervous. Not only do I have to worry if the grandparents will treat Baby 2 the same, but also will Jess and I?

When Jess was pregnant with Autumn, we chronicled every event from "In Utero Day 1" up to birth and nearly every week thereafter, entering new information into her diary. Frankly, it’s a rather exhausting task. I can see things being different with the second baby’s diary. One page: "Diary entry, April 2001 - June 2003... Little baby boy/girl was conceived, born and is now two years old."

We are going to try our best to ensure that all our future children are treated equally, but it seems like a heck of a lot of work. I think the most important thing is to be conscious of it, and constantly aware of your actions towards your kids. This way, your middle child won't grow up thinking that he was always "second best," and feel compelled to write about it in an online diary from his in-laws house in the Midwest. Oh, wait...

Thanks for listening.

Joe