Sometime ago, I saw this writing prompt posted in a writing community I belonged to: “What interesting stories do you have about soon after your child was born?”
After my second daughter was born, I called home from the hospital to talk to my oldest daughter, Carrie, who was two. I told her all about her new baby sister, Bethany.
When I got home, I held the baby carrier down so Carrie could peek inside. She smiled, gently touched Bethany’s cheek, then looked up at me and said, “That’s Bethany? I thought it would be a puppy.”
Two years later, I had my third daughter, Heather. I could hardly wait to bring her home. Her two sisters were waiting as we pulled into the driveway, their little faces framed in the window of the screen door, eyes wide with anticipation.
I remember thinking, “They are so beautiful, and now I have three!”
After a few weeks, I started to see signs that Carrie and Beth might be feeling a little left out, probably because of all the attention I had to pay to their baby sister.
I was nursing Heather on demand, at the time, which was still about every two hours. It didn’t leave me with a lot of extra Mommy play-time for coloring, building with Legos, and all of the other things I usually did with Carrie and Beth, now four and two.
While Heather was napping, I sat on the couch with Carrie on my right and Beth on my left. I asked them to tell me what it was like to have a new sister. Were they happy? Were they sad?
The answers were pretty much what I expected:
When can she play with us?
When will she have teeth?
When will she be bigger?
When can she talk?
When will she walk?
When can we take her to the playground?
I didn’t hear anything at all that would make me think they resented her. I felt happy and so relieved.
The most telling clue came, when Heather woke from her nap and I went in her room to pick her up. There, beside her on the mattress, was half of a grilled cheese sandwich.
Someone was even willing to share …
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a.DOR.able!