h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The thing about having a second baby is that you have already got used to thinking of yourself as a Mama and the way you see the world through that filter of slightly terrified responsibility. So there was less to think about in this pregnancy.

Of course, this time you were having a girl. This did produce a militant resurgence of your inner latent feminist, but luckily you were too busy to post any of the resultant rants here.

You have saved them up.

But one thing that did preoccupy somewhat you was the constant niggling worry that you had already produced, somehow, a really quite delightful, and inexplicably handsome first child and that in rolling the genetic dice for a second time you were risking turning out an unattractive, stolid lump. And an unattractive, stolid lump that you wouldn’t like as much as you like the Star.

Well, the Comet is two and a half months old now and you needn’t have worried.

Of course, she looks like a goblin. Her ears stick out at the top and are distinctly pointy. Plus she has a really wide nose. She does resemble the Star quite a bit though*, which bodes well for her future prettiness

She’s inherited the smiliness though**. And someone seems to have taught her that peeping out from under her eyelashes is a really cute thing for a little girl to do. She is also lying next to you as you type and blowing bubbles whole making little gurgling noises interspersed with the occasional coo. So that’ll be ‘charming’ covered then.

But essentially none of this matters, and neither does the fact that she has found her hands and feet rather more quickly than the Star did, or that she seems slightly (only slightly, mind) less inclined to be manically active than the Star, or that she stares unblinkingly at you and only you, ignoring all others, no matter how hard they are trying to get her to look at them.**

Right now the Comet could be the dullest, ugliest baby in the world and it wouldn’t matter. Because at the moment you are in that awful stage of aggressive mother love where it’s you and her against the world.

Well you, her and anything that looks like a baby.

And this sudden expansion of love, which exploded within you the moment the Comet’s slimy little body was passed though your legs for you to hold in the labour ward, is a shockingly odd sensation. It’s odd to realise just how blindingly fond you are of your son, uncritically adoring, to see that emotion reflected off another being.

But most of all it’s odd to have to accommodate another in that special place in your heart where once the Star reigned supreme.

Poor Star. The King is dead. Long live the Queen.

*At 3am you are thankful for the colour coding. If it weren’t for the fact that she is covered in pink, you sleep deprived mind would be very confused at times.

**Except the Star. If it came to a choice between you and the Star, the Star would win. The Comet worships the Star.