During my pregnancy with Jonah, I was very worried about how Sophie was going to react to the new baby. After all, she as already four when he was born and very used to being the baby herself. And she is a TOTAL mama’s girl and I was afraid she would be super-jealous and want to eat him alive for taking up my time and attention.
Whenever I expressed this fear either to friends or here on the blog, everyone said that Sophie would surprise me; you all said that she would looooove the baby and be a “Little Mommy”. Since I can barely get Sophie to glance sideways at her baby dolls, I was not really believing you all. At all.
But YOU were RIGHT.
She adores him. She wants to burp him, snuggle him, pick him up (no), change his diaper (um, NO), and shove his paci in his face all day long, even when he is soundly asleep without it, or happily awake without it. She tells him she loves him constantly and she is SO. Sweet.
But of course, she is a little TOO attentive, and I fear I am going to spend the next six months constantly saving Jonah from his big sister who loves him so much! Earlier this week I changed his diaper and then left him in the pack & play to wash my hands. I came back to find Sophie un-snapping his sleeper (4 snaps down!). “I’m gonna change him.” She informed me. I then informed her that he had just been changed and that, oh by the way, only grown-ups were allowed to change his diaper! (Although I HAVE let her “assist” with a gentle wipe after I’m already done.) Then, the next day as I was making dinner, Jonah was again in the pack & play when Joshua came running into the kitchen and said, “Mom, this is REALLY bad…” so I pushed him out of my way (he is incapable of saying ANYTHING quickly) and ran to the pack & play. Sophie was standing there with innocent eyes and Jonah was crying. Joshua followed me into the room and said “She kept trying to pick him up but she couldn’t. And she kept telling me it was my turn but I knew I wasn’t supposed to so I ran in to tell you.” (What a saint.) So I had to give her the lecture about how only grown-ups can pick the baby up. She cried and cried. She was really sad about it, because she was afraid she had hurt Jonah.
But despite the near-misses, Jonah seems to love her already, too. I caught one of his early smiles on Friday and he was looking right at Sophie as I took this picture:
Of course, two seconds later when she was trying to put his bootie on his HEAD instead of his foot, he was less enthusiastic:
And yet. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful sibling relationship! And I couldn’t be prouder of my girl for doting on her little brother!
And did you hear me? I said I was WRONG! You were RIGHT! I’m so humbled. 🙂
