Second- April is not the first woman Splinter ever met.
She was the first woman his sons had ever met, but she was his second. And though it wasn't fair, second was what she was.
Was it the universal tendency to idolize the dead? Was it the halo around the memories from before the mutation? Whatever it was, it meant that in all things she was being measured, tested, weighed, and compared. She was a fine woman, but who could be finer than the first? Whose fingers could be more slender and delicate? Whose cooking could taste better, whose hair could be shinier?
It wasn't fair. But he did it anyway.