Adjusting to a New Sibling

The first assassination attempt was a failure, as my dad said.  The first night we brought Evelyn home, Miles was determined to have Mommy read a book to him.  Of course, at that time, I was nursing Evelyn.  Daddy offered to read it to him, but he was dead set on having me read it.  Out of frustration, he threw the book down, and in the process basically threw it at Evelyn's head.  It hit her in the head, and she started screaming.  Not a great start.  Luckily, that seems to have been the only time this week that Miles has been the least bit jealous of the baby.  For the most part, he still seems completely oblivious to the fact that Evelyn even exists, though every now and then when I'm nursing her, he will walk up and say "baby" really sweetly and walk away.

Vivienne is mostly just enamored with Evelyn.  She immediately comes looking for "Mommy Baby" when she comes into the house.  She absolutely loves it when I nurse Evie, which is a very, very good thing, because she breastfeeds a lot, and my hands are pretty tied while I'm nursing her.  Vivienne will actually encourage Evie to eat ("Baby eat!  Baby eat!") even when the baby is not hungry.  Viv is a great little helper - getting us diapers and blankets and throwing things away for us.  She loves feeling like she is really helping us, and I keep reminding her of what a wonderful big sister she is.

But there are times when Vivienne is clearly in need of Mommy's undivided attention.  She likes to be held, especially when she's tired or just waking up from a nap.  Earlier this week, she woke up from her nap very fussy.  Jason went to get them out of their cribs, but Vivienne came into our room where I was napping with the baby and said,"No!  No!  No!  Up!  Up!  Mommy up!"  So I got up and put the baby down to continue her nap.  Even though I was holding Vivi and rocking her, she kept crying and saying "Up!  Up!"  It was still pretty uncomfortable for me to hold her standing up for long periods of time, so I was trying to get her to settle down into the recliner with me to watch some Elmo (usually Elmo can cure just about anything).  But the tantrum continued.

Eventually Jason took her outside to try to calm her down, but that didn't work.  During this time, Evelyn woke up and I started nursing her.  Of course, Viv was very upset by this when she came back into the house because I couldn't even hold her.  She just kept crying and saying "Mommy" and it just broke my heart.  I think we eventually resolved the situation by taking the big kids outside for popsicles.  This was definitely the "low" of my week, though.  I'm concerned about assuring all of my children that I love them all so dearly and that they are all important to me and that there is enough Mommy for everyone.  I hope that I'm able to communicate that to Vivienne and Miles during this time of transition.

So this week we have been concentrating on spending lots of time with Miles and Viv.  We have spent hours and hours outside playing with them in the yard with sprinklers and hoses.  Jason has taken them to the pool. Yesterday, we took them to Marbles (our first outing as a family of five without additional backup).  Grandma and Granddad have also been taking them during the nights and giving them extra undivided attention.  We're constantly telling them how much we love them, and we're praising them profusely when they do a good job.  Hopefully they realize that Mommy and Daddy's hearts have expanded infinitely again with the addition of Evelyn, and that we still love them to pieces.