The Eight of Us

My sweet, sweet girl. I feel for her, I really do. She is having such a hard time adjusting to the new baby.

It's not that she isn't the center of attention anymore. She still is. She is still very often entertaining the entire living room, pretending that she doesn't notice everyone laughing and cooing over her. She still is a big hit.

And it's not that she dislikes the baby. Not at all. The problem is that she loves him just too much.

But she is so clumsy and rough. She asks several times a day to hold him and no one ever lets her. She helps change his diaper by grabbing a wipe and smacking him across the bottom as gentle as she knows how (unfortunately that's not very gentle), and he cries, and then , of course, she cries. She climbs up on the bed every morning to come see "baby! baby! baby!" and always within minutes of being up there, loses her balance and lands on his head. Then he cries, then she cries... see a pattern?

Poor little thing, she's only trying to be helpful. But it's only been a few weeks, and she has been learning quickly how to be more gentle. She's getting there. And in a couple of months, he will be more durable, and in a couple of years, he will be beating up on her.