Preparing for Big Sisterhood

Gwen has been talking about baby Fiona constantly and often talks about how she is going to take care of her. She's got big plans to rock her, feed her, change her diaper, and put her to sleep. She did offer that I could have a turn holding her if she gets tired.

She also loves to find little toys around the house and put them in Fiona's room, saying that it is something that she would like. Gwen's favorite thing is the wind up music player that used to be part of her old mobile. Somehow she found this and then took it and hung it on a basket in Fiona's room. Every now and then Gwen goes in there and winds it up to play.

The other day I mentioned that when Fiona is very little, she will sleep in our room in the bassinet instead of her own room. Later I noticed that the music player was no longer in Fiona's room, but had been moved to the bassinet. So sweet.

We are really lucky that we've had the opportunity to prepare Gwen for Fiona's birth by taking her to the hospital to see new babies born to our good friends. My close friend, Emily, just had a baby that will be 3 weeks older than Fiona and my other great friend, Traci, just had a baby that will be two weeks older than Fiona.

While visiting our friends, we were able to show Gwen around, explain things, and let her see first hand what it will be like when it's our turn. Of course, we also got to hold some really sweet babies!


The other day Gwen wanted to pretend she was a mommy having a baby (we play this game a lot these days). After she "pushed" out her baby (which turned out the be a bear), she wanted me to pretend to be Gwen. She asked if I wanted to hold the "baby", and of course I reached my hands out to hold him. She stopped me and said that I needed to wash my hands first. I pretended to wash my hands. I tried to hold him again and she said I didn't dry them well enough. I finally got to hold him and I got warned to be careful with his head and then was chastised for not being gentle enough.

After my turn was over, I went to do something else and then she offered me the opportunity to hold the baby again. Of course I had to wash my hands again because I had touched something else.

The funniest part of our pretend game came from when we were visiting Traci at the hospital. While we were there, Traci got up to use the restroom for the first time and Gwen and I stepped out of the room to give her some privacy.

So... fast forward back to our pretend game of Gwen pretending to be a Mommy....she told me that she needed to try and go potty for the first time and made me leave the room for privacy. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I did see her go in the corner by the fireplace and I heard some impressive sound effects. It sounded like her first attempt to pretend to use the potty as a pretend Mommy was successful.

It won't be long before the pretending is over and she will be experiencing the real thing. I hope we prepared her well.