Meeting Baby Sister

As I mentioned in my earlier blog post, we welcomed our baby girl last month.  In the time leading up to my due date, I had been slowly working with both of the boys trying to help them understand they would have a new baby around the house soon.  I sat with both of them together as I don't get feedback from Ayden and was hoping Issac would help a little with that.

We first started by just talking about the baby in mom's tummy.  We had a name early, which did help.  Issac very quickly began to refer to her as "Baby Emma".  He wanted to kiss her and at times even talked to her and told her about what he was doing.  Ayden seemed very indifferent, as is fairly standard, but you could see he was paying attention.

As my due date approached, I began to explain that mommy was going to go to the hospital, and while I was there Nana would be staying with them.  Then, after mommy came home Baby Emma would be out of my tummy and they could hold her.  We repeated this often, and I asked Issac questions about what was happening so I knew he was taking the information in.

When the time finally came for me to go to the hospital, it really couldn't have gone more smoothly.  We had a few hours to prepare which helped out a lot.  The boys didn't even blink as Nana came and mom and dad left.

We decided ahead of time we wanted the boys to come to the hospital to meet their sister.  Mr Awesome went home and picked them up and brought them there.  They were very familiar with the hospital as we'd been there a few times with problems.  I expected Issac to be extremely excited and interested in baby girl, and Ayden to just be curious and then done quickly.  He'd never given me reason to think otherwise.   You can imagine my surprise when the came into the room and Ayden ran to see mommy and baby!  It was the beginning of a very emotional visit with my sweet little boys.  Ayden was so attentive and curious right from the start.  He knew exactly what was going on and was so excited!  I don't think he removed his eyes from his sister for the first 10 minutes they were there until he was allowed to hold her.  We put Ayden on my lap, then I  helped him hold Emma.   He just looked at her, gently touched her head, and kissed her.  It was one of the sweetest moments I've ever experienced.  Everyone talks about how little girls will wrap daddy around their fingers, but she had her biggest brother at first sight.  Both mom and dad were fighting back tears as our boys were introduced to baby girl.

This was without a doubt one of the happiest days of my life.

A month later, the boys are still wonderful with baby girl.  Both of them are learning to put her pacifier back in when she cries and pat her on the back when she is upset.  Ayden thinks it's funny when she cries and usually laughs, but he always tries to comfort her.  They both check on her first then when they get up in the morning too.  Both of them love to hold her as well.  Ayden even learned how to ask me to hold her, which was another huge step for him - and maybe for me because I understood him!  He was so excited!

We're all still in the process of adjusting, but it is going so much better than I ever could have imagined.  I love seeing them all together and interacting.  It's new and exciting, even though we've done the newborn phase a few times.  As of now, we haven't really seen any issues either.  I expected some behavioral issues with both kids, but they have been exceptional with Ayden even making strides in other areas and actually advancing.  All-in-all...life is pretty amazing.