The baby really likes me!
I calmed him down.
He’s SO cute!
Baby is crying mom. You can’t leave him alone!
Look, he’s happy!
Before baby came, I worried that his siblings might feel jealous. I wondered if they’d feel neglected. I thought the first month or so, when babies demand so much, would be challenging. I waited for one to declare, as my daughter did with her younger brother, “Let’s give him back!”
My 3 year-old felt hesitant at first, reluctant to hold baby and clinging to Dad in lieu of mom. I think this came more from the strangeness of hospital room, surgery, and mom looking pail and moving stiffly. Once we arrived home, he warmed up to his brother, asking for turns to hold baby. In fact, Kai is the least deterred by crying, smiling as he holds his wailing brother.
When the kids arrive home from school, they look for their baby brother first, asking, “Where is Sebastian?” They find him snuggled somewhere and immediately rub his head, as if for luck.
This tenderness, this sweetness, this innate instinct to nurture fills me with joy every time I witness it. I see it in my daughter – the person most people expected to be “motherly,” – and I see it it distinctly in my boys. This little person is a gift to everyone in our home. He is someone to nurture, protect, and love unconditionally, without any conditions. And he reminds us to be a little bit more tender with everyone around us.
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