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Lily seems well aware that she is going to have a baby brother, and she is super excited to be a big sister.  I don’t know how much she understands about how our lives are going to change, but she has the basics down — there’s a baby in Mommy’s tummy; when he’s big enough, the doctor will help get him out at the hospital, and we’ll bring him home.  And lately she’s been talking a lot about the baby and talking to him, too.  She’ll come up to my tummy and say in a squeaky little sing-song voice, “Hi, Baby Brudder.  Hi, little buddy.  I’m your big sister!”  She will also hold her ear to my belly button and claim, “I hear my baby brudder!  He’s cy-ing.  Don’t cy, baby.  It’s okay.”  (This is probably because I have tried to start preparing her for the good deal of crying that comes with a baby, so she knows babies cry a lot.)

Since Lily is heavy into pretend play these days, she has invented a new game.  “I want to hold my baby brudder,” she will tell me, seating herself next to me and holding out her arms.  The first time she did this, I explained to her that the baby had to stay in Mommy’s tummy for quite a while longer, but she was insistent.  “I take him out, ” she said, and pretended to scoop up the baby from my belly and then held “him,” cooing and saying “He’s so tiny!”  I found this to be part creepy, part adorable, and since then she has occasionally repeated this game, so I just go along with it, scooping up an imaginary baby and handing him over.

Today Lily came across an ancient pacifier from her baby days.  She told me it was for her brother, walked over to me, lifted up my shirt, and stuck it in my belly button.

I know they will have plenty of challenging days together in the years ahead, so I just wanted to document this time, when Lily has nothing but sweet words and adoration for the brother she has yet to meet.  She is already an amazing big sister.

Bill and I have taken to speaking in code when around Lily, in addition to the requisite spelling out of words.  Her code name, as established by Bill, is “The Rabbit,” as in, “Don’t look now, but The Rabbit is actually putting away the  t-o-y-s, as requested.”  So, we are obviously very smart parents.

Until this morning over breakfast, when Bill said, “The Rabbit is actually eating e-g-g-s today!”  Lily looked up, and I said, “I think she may be on to us.”  Lily just smiled coyly and said, “Daddy, I’m a person!”  Yes, very smart parents indeed.

So, we are just trying to stay one step ahead of her these days.  No easy task, and my mind frequently wanders to a not-too-distant future, when we will be trying to stay ahead of two.  As I carried Lily out to the car today to go to preschool, she pointed out that, when the baby is here, I’ll have to carry the baby on one side and her on the other.  “That’s one, two,” holding up first one, then two fingers, “kids!”  Laughter.  “That’s a lot of kids!”  Oh, boy.  I couldn’t agree more.

Since it’s been awhile, here are a few pics of us lately:

Here’s Lily on her first day of preschool:

Here’s me at about 22 weeks:                    And here’s Lil after she found my lipstick:

And here’s baby boy, at about 19 weeks:

Work has commenced on the boy’s nursery, as well as the transition of Lily to her new “big girl room.”  We are keeping the decor the same for her, just moving her to the larger guest room and putting in a twin bed.  Hopefully over the next several weeks, the nursery will be transformed into something “all boy.”  Getting fun around here!

Me:  “Oooo!  Look at this dinosaur!”  (holding up plastic dinosaur at the toy store).  “What kind of dinosaur is this, Lily?” 

Lily: “Ankylosaurus!”

Me:  “Um, yep – that’s right.”   Hmmmm.