Baby sister has been home for 9 days. She has been in our home and in our lives for over a week. For some in our family it has been a harder transition to get used to.
Take Rhett for example. Cora’s first night home, back before her surgery, so this was Friday May 25, Big Bro Rhett Henry didn’t quite understand what was going on. That was the worst evening for him. Fortunately it has gotten a little better each day. But that evening he screamed demands, threw temper tantrums, hit, slapped and kicked anyone in his way and definitely didn’t want to give sweet anythings to the strange being in his Momma’s lap. We were home 3 full days before Jake and I and Cora left again for Dallas. In that time, Rhett did eventually give baby sister kisses, but his temper, stubborness and bad attitude never subsided. His new thing is grunting at us when we ask or tell him to do/not do something. You know the sound that all us moms make when we don’t say the words, “don’t do that” instead we make a ‘unk’ grunt-like noise and our children know what it means. I’ve used that approach successfully for my 2 older boys. But Rhett has turned it back on me, and he now uses the same noise. So, I have broken myself from the habit of my Momma noise and I am waiting patiently for Rhett to forget that I ever used it; so he too will stop.
While we were in Dallas the second round, Rhett was sick for the majority of the time. So as should be, he was cuddled and held by his Nonnie who he was staying with for the time. This illness and attitude with it didn’t help his big brother problems he was experiencing.
But when we got home from Dallas for the second and final time I was determined to get him back on track. For the past 4 months I hadn’t been able to pick him up, chase him down or follow through with any kind of real discipline. He realized this and had definitely been taking advantage of me. But Momma got a brand new badge. I was back. Feeling good and ready to tackle the ‘terrible two’s/ new baby syndrome’ once and for all.
Like I said above, we’ve been home now for 9 days. The first few he was still feeling crummy and coughing but I didn’t let that interfere with my challenge of straightening him out 🙂 He probably told his Daddo and I ‘No’ about 50 times a day those first few days back. He wouldn’t mind us if we were telling him to eat a cookie. But he has slowly started to smile more and not point his little eye brows down all the time. Daddo and I make sure and give him one-on-one special time every day. Most importantly I’m back to disciplining him consistently again. It’s amazing how much consistency plays a part in a kid’s behavior, but it does! But he’s still struggling and will for a while longer I’m sure.
You see he has his big brother Will’s strong-will personality and his OCD tendencies (also mine). But Rhett also has his Grump’s and Uncle Ty’s temper to go along with his particular-ness. He’s also the tag-a-long little brother who just wants to hang with the big boys but obviously can’t. VERY frustrating for him. So couple that with yet another attention-grabber coming home, his Momma being completely absent for pretty much 2 weeks, and he’s almost 2…. hard life. But I tell Rhett every day that he will get through this. It’s hard now, but it’ll get better. I know he doesn’t understand what I’m saying, but it makes me feel better to tell him that it will be ok. One day he will be able to communicate his wants and needs. He’ll become another opinionated person in this house. Hopefully we will all remember to listen to the 3rd child and take into consideration his desires. Until then, we’re going to keep working on omitting that grunt and saying ‘No’ and instead being a happy, laid back little guy that he was, oh, umm, back in November.
Our oldest big brother, William, has been the biggest surprise for all of us these past few weeks. If you know Will and have been around him even just a little bit, you probably know that he has the tendency to be a little self-centered. He loves his family and his buddies and has always been nice to others, but when it comes to smaller daily decisions, Will thinks of himself first. We’ve worked on this ‘issue’ with Will since he was a toddler first showing signs of being insensitive to others’ feelings. He’s a very aggressive, competitive person by nature and I think that has kind of caused his lack of care sometimes to others’ feelings. But as soon as he found out back in late January that he was going to have a baby sister, Daddo and I have noticed a change in him. Every night at bedtime, after he of course got his back scratch, he wanted to kiss my belly and tell her ‘night night.’ He started asking a lot of questions about her and wanted to name her. It was becoming less and less about Will (though majority of his thoughts still about himself) and more about his sister and even his Momma. He knew I was tired a lot and he started getting things for me in the house and helping me out. The biggest change we have ever seen in Bubba was the moment he walked into the recovery room after my c-section and saw me holding his baby sister. He was quiet and moved slow and cautiously. When he saw her face he started beaming. He got to hold her and he was so gentle. The next day when he was back at school in his 1st grade class, his teacher sent me a text and told me about the little pink book marker he had made. He used purple marker and sparkly butterfly stickers and wrote ‘Coura’ on it. (we’ve since taught him the correct spelling). Until then, he wouldn’t as much as touch a ‘girly color’ marker or stickers. Heck my boys will pass up cake at a birthday party if it has pink icing. His teacher Mrs. Coleman had told me that Will said he wasn’t going to say the word ‘pretty’ until his sister got here. Then he would only use it to talk about her. But not only has his attention and care turned to his sister, but we’ve also seen him taking care of Rhett more too. At a swimming birthday party the other day, Will took care of Rhett in the pool the entire time. Helped him in and out of the pool, on the diving board, on the floaties, etc. He didn’t play with his buddies hardly at all. And in the car, he has ‘baby duty’ next to Cora Love. He wipes her spit up, he puts the paci in her mouth and he tells me if she’s sleeping or not. Our Bubba is growing up. Finally after having 3 younger siblings enter his life, he’s taking the role of big brother seriously and he’s doing a GREAT job. I’m a proud Momma.
Cole has been the least changed I think through all of this. He is not however the perfect angel I would’ve claimed him to be this time last year. Months before CL was born, Cole’s personality went from the laid back, go-with-the-flow, never complain or whine kid to the exact opposite. He now has an opinion for everything (not our’s) and he will argue, whine and even cry about it. I don’t think this has anything to do with having a baby sister, though I can’t put my finger on the cause for this attitude change. Cole’s always been his own kind of person. He’s confident and creative. Fun and loving. He’s my sensitive guy. Christmas time is the first I noticed this change in him when he started complaining about the lack of presents he was getting. We nipped that selfishness in the bud quickly, or so we thought. We hope that this is just a phase that he will pull out of in a few months or maybe a year. We definitely hope this isn’t a permanent personality change from our sweet little Coco. He, too, has baby duty in the far back seat of the car. He has Rhett. He buckles him in for me but at times has forgotten about him and climbed out and closed the door. He went to basketball camp last week, and on the last day he started balling because he said no one ever passed him the ball. Again, this is not our little ‘go get’em,’ confident middle child. Maybe our Cole McCoy will find his way back soon.
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