First Encounters

During the pregnancy we've been preparing Adahleigh for the arrival of Keisha. For the last few months she has constantly been bringing her up by asking "Baby sister in Mom's belly?". At first she would also say "I have a Baby in my belly too!!", but we taught her that she had food in her belly so then she would say "Mom has baby sister in her belly, I have food in my belly." She has been really excited to finally meet her and hold her. She told us the week before Keisha got her that she wanted to hold baby sister all day. She didn't know what to think about going to the hospital, but when she finally saw Keisha she got really excited. She loves to hold her and look at her now and Keisha doesn't seem to mind. One of the funniest things Adahleigh has said is "Baby sister's belly is falling out." She said this the first time she watched us change Keisha and saw her umbilical cord there. I asked her if her belly was falling out, so she got a little worried and lifted her shirt up just to make sure then said "Adahleigh's belly not falling out". She isn't quite sure that Keisha is okay even though we've reassured her that it's just her belly button.

We were a little worried about how Charles would handle a new sibling. He's very independent so we weren't too worried about him being jealous of her getting attention, since he doesn't like a whole lot of it himself. The thing that worried us is he likes to pick on Adahleigh and will whack her pretty good sometimes, his favorite thing to do is wait until she's getting her diaper changed and then run up and hit her, since he knows she can't really do anything at that point. He ended up being just as interested in Keisha as Adahleigh was from the start. He wanted to get a good look at her and hold her himself. He has been especially gentle with her and may even be a little more protective of her that Adahleigh is. He really likes to go up and rub her head. We've yet to have any problems with him getting too rough with her.