Preparing for Baby Sister

I don't think we made a huge attention-grabbing post about this, but for about 2 months we've known our second baby is a GIRL! We're excited beyond belief to be welcoming a daughter into our family, and have been gently and slowly preparing Markus for the enormous change to come. Well, as much as we can prepare a young, non-verbal toddler for anything!

Lately I've been sitting on the couch kind of a lot, due to a mix of pregnancy-induced laziness and pregnancy-and-toddler-induced exhaustion. Markus is fantastic at independent play, sometimes for as long as 10 minutes at a time, but he does come to me a lot. I'm his "home base" and in between his duties as a plastic bowl wrangler and toy inspector, he likes to come to me and bury his face in my lap. Which now sort-of includes my belly.

In the interest of saving my unborn baby from enthusiastic head-butts, I began telling Markus that his baby sister was inside and he had to be gentle. I would lift up my shirt and show him my belly (he usually pokes my now-outtie belly button with his finger and laughs when I giggle) and point to my belly, saying, "It's your baby sister in there. Let's be gentle." This inevitably resulted in tiny finger-pokes all over my belly, which weren't much gentler than the aforementioned head-butts. I took his hand and softly stroked my belly with it, telling Markus, "We have to be gentle. Your sister is very small."

Being a stay-at-home mom, I obviously talk to Markus all day long. I tell him lots of things: what I'm doing at any given time, things I'm thinking about, what gramma was telling me on the phone, what I'm planning on making for dinner, etc. I also give him many instructions and commands throughout the day, most of them beginning with "don't" or "stop" or "OMG NOOOOOO!!!" It's still incredible when, often days later, he remembers one thing and repeats or demonstrates understanding of it.

Today, I was crouching in front of Markus, having just received one of his amazing little toddler hugs, when it occurred to me to ask, "Markus, where's your sister?" Without hesitation, Markus pointed to my belly, then rubbed it gently. Just as I'd taught him! It was the sweetest thing. I'm at my parents' house for the week, while Raph works on the new baby's nursery and some other projects around the house, so I immediately wanted to show my mom Markus' new trick. He repeated it, but so much better - he first "hugged" my belly, then rubbed both hands all over it. It was very loving and just wonderful.

I hope this means he'll love his sister and be gentle with her when she's physically here...time will tell!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMMY!!!!