Siblings

Tags

brothers, new baby, siblings, sisters

I’m an only child, and my parents rarely fought.

That means that I am completely alien to any kind of family discord. A sharp word is devastating. A disagreement is the end of the world. I have never had to fight for what I wanted with an equal. The only people at home were my parents and they outranked me so if I asked for something and the answer was no, well, that was the end of the matter.

It may have led to a peaceful childhood, but I’m not sure it did me any favours.

So I always knew that I wanted two kids, and Owl’s personality confirmed that before he turned two.

But I am dreading sibling rivalry.

PH is the youngest of 5 kids, so he probably won’t be horrified when the kids fight and hit each other and claim to hate each other, but I will. Such things simply NEVER HAPPENED IN MY HOUSE when I was growing up. They are not normal to me.

We did a lot to prepare Owl for the baby. We explained how babies were made when he asked, although we refused to give him a live demonstration despite his repeated and eager petitions to witness one. Instead we got him a book.

We explained carefully what babies are like. The baby won’t be able to play with you. It will cry and dirty its diaper and that’s about it. Murmel Murmel, by the way, is a great book for explaining what babies do and what they are for.

We explained the importance of being a big brother. One of my friends didn’t want to make her son into a second parent and placed a lot of weight on him NOT having to help, but we decided to go another way and tell him how important it was for him to help us and help her. He likes to help.

He was very pleased with the idea of having a baby sister and showed no signs of anxiety before she came, but I was still worried about how he would deal with the change. I braced myself for acting out, jealousy, all sorts of stuff.

Guys, he LOVES her.

In fact, his behavior has actually IMPROVED since she was born. He loves to hug her (unfortunately he grabs her head and squeezes so she doesn’t really appreciate his hugs) and coo over her and he will drop whatever he is doing rather than miss a chance to come upstairs with me and hand me a clean diaper when I change her.

He even tries to play with her. One of his favourite games is to  pretend that one of her flailing fists has hit him. He then throws himself down on the bed as if she has just sent him flying.

It’s adorable.

Better yet, in the last month or so she has started noticing him and she loves him right back. When he is in the room she watches him and smiles, and sometimes she’ll just stare at him and chortle, and then he chortles back, and it is SO CUTE.

I know that she’s going to get bigger and start knocking over his block towers and messing up his stuff and she’s going to start pestering him and their dynamic will change.

But for now, they love each other and I am SO, SO, SO RELIEVED.

The 2nd Labour Story Part III: In Which I Bond Very Quickly With A Doughnut. Yes, An Actual Doughnut.

Tags

birth, bonding, doughnuts, gestational diabetes, hospital, new baby, newborn, second baby, tim hortons

A lot of women talk about that magic moment when they see their baby for the first time. I have a theory about it.

You see, I didn’t have that magic fall-in-love feeling when I first saw Owl. I was just like, “hey, look, a baby.”

Some people claim that a heavily medicated birth, such as Owl’s, interferes with natural bonding hormones and prevent that awesome gush of love that some mothers feel on the birth of their child.

But I don’t think that’s it.

You see, I have friends who have felt that rush of love despite an incredibly traumatic/heavy intervention birth, and I know people who didn’t feel it despite a completely natural birth.

Here’s my theory:

It has nothing to do with the kind of birth.

It has to do with the kind of person you are.

I believe that if you are the sort of person who believes in or has experienced love-at-first-sight (in the romantic sense), you will be the kind of person who experiences love-at-first-sight on the birth of their child.

On the other hand, if you are a more practical, slow-to-warm-up kind of person, like me, you’re less likely to fall head over heels in love the moment a squalling newborn is dumped on you.

It’s a shame, because I would love to have that rush of mother love.

Still, when I watch videos about natural birth, people always talk about that rush of endorphins that comes with it, and it made me wonder if maybe that really would help. Maybe my theory is wrong.

So when I was told that I wouldn’t be getting an epidural, the part of my brain that was still ME and separate from my body was actually pleased because this way I might get to experience the big endorphin rush.

Yeah, I didn’t feel any kind of rush when I was giving birth.

I don’t know if I ever have endorphin rushes. Maybe I don’t have endorphins. Maybe there were endorphins but I didn’t notice them. Maybe if there weren’t I would have hurt even more. I don’t know. But I definitely felt no elation, no rush. Just some anxiety because I still hadn’t seen my baby.

Finally they brought her over to me and laid her on my chest.

I’m Back! And so is Babby!

Tags

birth, new baby, newborn, postdue

Hi everyone! I’ve missed you. This isn’t the labour story yet, because I feel that deserves a level of time and attention that I don’t have yet (visitor stream is dying down slowly, but the next one is expected in 10-15 minutes).

Just wanted to let you know that as PH has said, we have a healthy Babby with ten fingers, and ten toes, although two are freakishly webbed, a trait he inherited from me (that blew my mind – HE HAS MY CRAZY TOES). He looks like a cross between Muppet Babby Perfect Husband and a baby sea turtle. We aren’t sure if he’s an angel or devil spawn, because he kept us up two nights in a row with colicky toothless screaming but has been cooperatively eating and dozing for the last 36 hours. We’re not sure what awaits us tonight.

While you’re waiting for the gory details, some pictures! These pics are when he was only a few hours old and heavily over-baked in my oven (it was my first attempt at babby-cooking, okay?), so please excuse post-birth baby cone head, splotchiness, peeling skin etc. Also, PH is still deliberating on whether to let me use his son’s real name. I would happily tell you, since it’s a really generic name, but of course this is a two-parent decision. So a moniker may be in order.

New Babby

The new family

Perfect Husband approves of Babby