Brotherly Love and Other Things

Brotherly Love

S has wanted a sister since he was old enough to ask for one.  When he was just a toddler, he would get so excited when we would meet a baby girl and he always asked me if we could "take home?"  He wanted a little girl so bad!!  When he was three, I got pregnant.  S was insistent the baby would be a girl and if anyone used the word "he" to describe the baby, he would instantly correct them.  He wanted a girl and by, golly, he was going to get a girl!

And then came our anatomy ultrasound where we found out the gender.  A little boy.  S spent weeks refusing to even acknowledge that there was a baby.  It was cute and sad all at the same time ;)  Eventually he came around and agreed that a little brother could also be cool and he even started to get excited about the pending arrival of Baby B.  However, he was quite serious each and every time he told me I needed to have another baby and a girl next time.

When Baby B was around nineteen months old, we found out about our third little one.  Again, all S could talk about was getting a girl, a baby sister.  He wanted to go to the ultrasound to find out in person so we all went along with my cousin who was also insistent we needed a girl.  The ultrasound tech is measuring bits and pieces with S narrating body parts behind her (look, that's an arm.....a leg....lady, is that her ribs?  He has a remarkable memory for things that are important to him and the office we went to with B was great with kids and our ultrasound techs taught him how to identify parts and apparently he still remembered).  I saw the little "hamburger" and waited for the tech to announce and for S to go crazy.  She looked at it from a few different angles and then announced to the room that we were having a girl.  I am sure she regretted not having earplugs when S realized his most fervent wish was coming true ;) (B, on the other hand, could have cared less.  He just wanted to go back to the waiting room and look at the Highlights magazine.)

Now that Baby I is here, S never misses a chance to love up on her:

And Baby I loves it :)  Whenever she sees Big Brother S coming, she is all smiles and giggles and soaks up his love and attention.  When she is unhappy for some reason, S comes running to comfort her.  He loves to hold her and hug her and give her kisses.  He has installed himself as her protector and is quick to remind people that her heart is sick so they must be very careful with her and if they are sick, they should stay away because its so 'portant to keep her healthy.  If wishfulness was powerful enough, she'd be healed from S alone :)


She is a bit more wary of Little Big Brother B ;-)  He also adores her but sometimes I think he believes she is a cat as he likes to pet her.  He can get a little rough so we have to watch him closely but when he is being gentle, he can always make her smile and laugh and he, too, loves to hold her.  Sometimes she'll be napping beside me on the bed while I fold laundry and B will quietly creep up on the bed to hold her hand or lay next to her.

Someday, this little girl is going to be so embarrassed by her big brothers as they do a more thorough job than Daddy grilling all of her potential dates ;-)


Other Things


B will hopefully meet with the speech therapist soon and be officially approved to do therapy.  One of the Lovely Ladies stopped by with the paperwork to get him enrolled and referred to speech and she is pretty certain he should be approved no problem.  Poor B has been getting really frustrated lately because he has added all of these new words to his vocabulary but I am the only one to understand him :\  He tries to tell Dad or his brother or the grandparents what he wants or feels and they are left scratching their heads with no idea what he is trying to say.  S was excellent at using gestures to illustrate his words but B stubbornly just keeps repeating the same word/phrase over and over and has a meltdown if no one gets it.  *sigh*  He has been giving a whole new meaning to Terrible Twos around here!  I am hoping the therapist can help him speak more clearly--the things I did with S are not working with B :p

I also heard back from the school psychologist about S's ADHD and the effect it is having on his schoolwork/classroom.  We are trying to get him evaluated to see if any additional therapies/services would help but she wants to give him more time.  While we have seen some small improvements after he started a little behavioral therapy, his test scores are still low enough that he won't pass first grade.  Most of the stuff he tests so poorly on he can do and is often very good at it when he is focused.  Unfortunately, most of the time he is distracted or hyper or wanting to do something else.  Plus I have concerns about the fact that he rights quite a few letters/numbers backwards and tells me he just writes them the way he sees them.  Dyslexia runs in the family on both sides so the sooner we can check to see if its that, the better, so he can get the proper help.  It could just be him not remembering which way the letters point but I would much rather have him do the full evaluation and find out if he qualifies for some extra help to get him on track.  He is a smart kid, and does some amazing things......but he needs a little extra help to figure out how to handle everything.  The Lovely Ladies did warn us that the school may try to delay or not even do the full evaluation and that we should push for it so that is what we are doing.  Wish us luck!

And one last gratuitous picture, just because I can ;-)  Baby I often has trouble regulating her temperature and will switch between hot and cold in minutes so we have to be prepared to layer her up and down and have plenty of blankets on hand.  She looks awfully cute in her warm layers :D