The trials and triumphs of adding a sibling

“Mommy put the baby down,” Kendall, my 2-year-old, demanded less than a minute after I had scooped up my friend’s 6-month-old into my arms.

This was months ago, when I was still in my second trimester of pregnancy.

My girlfriend had come over to hang out with her own daughter. She had been over before, and every time I held her baby, my child would demand I leave the thing alone.

Kendall came over to me and tried pulling my arms away from the cooing baby. “Put the baby down!”

She then climbed up onto the couch where I was sitting and tried to occupy my lap with the offending child.

“This is my Mommy,” she seethed directly into the baby’s face.

Just as Kendall wound her arm up in a move that looked as though she might shove — or worse, hit — the poor little thing, I handed the bundle back to her mother.

Satisfied, Kendall curled up against my chest and refused to leave, as though the baby might suddenly jump up and demand real estate in my lap again.

Kendall refused to let the baby play with any of her old baby toys. “That’s mine,” she’d shout as she ripped the baby rattle, or ring of plastic keys, out of the infant’s hand.

I tried to reason with my toddler — “You don’t play with these toys anymore. Can’t you share for a little while?” Her answer was always a “no.” No sharing her Mommy. No sharing her toys.

How was she going to react when the baby arrived in late August? I began to stew on the image of Kendall nearly shoving the baby out of my arms.

Would she hate the baby? Would she be this territorial toward her own flesh and blood?

I understood that there would be an adjustment period. And that, yes, she would have to learn to share my time with her brother. But, I feared she might think the baby was ruining her life.

I had never seen this behavior before. Prior to my pregnancy, Kendall seemed to gravitate toward babies and would always gently pet their heads like they were kittens.

As summer progressed and my due date grew closer, my fears became less pressing. Kendall seemed genuinely concerned and interested in the progression of my pregnancy.

She would cuddle next to me and keep her hand on my belly just to feel her brother’s kicks. She would gasp or laugh at every movement depending on how much force was behind it.

When I would arrive home from my weekly doctor appointments, she would run to me, lift my shirt up and kiss my belly. “Baby brother all good?” she would ask.

Every time we encountered parents with their babies at the playground, or the grocery store, Kendall would enthusiastically drag me over to them.  

“Look! Mommy’s having my baby brother! Mommy gets bigger! Bigger!”

Finally, the day I was worried and excited about arrived. Baby Hayden Milan was born.

And Kendall was thrilled.

I heard her shouting with joy down the hallway before she entered my room.

When at last she received her first glance of him, as he cuddled into my arms, her face lit up.

What my doctor, Wendy White, had advised me came instantly true — she wouldn’t hate being a big sister because I was  “giving her the greatest gift: a sibling.”

Kendall unwrapped her gift with tender care. She jumped into the hospital bed with us and gently patted his head. She traced the outline of his jaw, his nose and his soft cheeks with her finger. Perhaps she saw herself in his tiny face just as I did?

Over the next few weeks, we all adjusted to the new member of our family. Kendall would get frustrated at how often Hayden needed to be fed and changed. She would clamor for my attention. She told me to put him down.

One morning, she woke at 4 a.m. and upon seeing that Hayden was asleep, she woke me up to play.

We played for over an hour, all while she talked as fast as she could, telling me what she thought I had missed from her life over the recent days. She wanted to get everything in while she had me alone, and it almost broke my heart.

She began to be a mommy to her own doll, though (a doll and accessories we ordered off of Amazon and told her was a gift sent from her baby brother). She would sit on the couch and breast-feed her baby when Hayden fed.

She began saying, “When Kendall gets older, Kendall have a baby!”

She couldn’t possibly hate him if she was willing to have one of her own some day. Right?

And then the moment arrived when all my worries dissipated.

We had found ourselves, for the second time this summer, in the ER in Ames receiving our rabies vaccinations because of another incident with a bat in our home.

Kendall cried a little when she received her booster shot. She bravely held my hand when I received mine.

But, when the nurse turned to Hayden with syringe in hand and said it was his turn, Kendall flipped out. Through the tears she screamed, “Not my baby brother! Not Hayden, no!”

There is definitely nothing but love in her heart for her brother.

Today, with Hayden being just a month old, Kendall still tells me to, “Put the baby down!”

But, now, her demand is followed by, “It’s Kendall’s turn to hold him.”

Andra Kucerak Guccione is a Jefferson resident.

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