I played this out in my head many times. That magical moment when my daughter first met her baby brother at the hospital. She would smile, say his name and of course, give him the sweetest kiss, that of course would make it on our baby announcement. I should have known better. Apparently I had left my fairy dust at home in the flurry of getting to the hospital.
I thought I was doing everything right. We got her a present from her baby brother (check). I wasn’t holding the baby when she came in (check). I reached out to hug and love on her as soon as she came in the room (check).
Queue the insanity. She instantly crawled back up her daddy to be held and literally said “go” while pointing to the door. She did like the present from her baby brother after we told her about it, but still insisted on “go, go”. Seeing as my daughter came with my mom, my husband’s mom and my sister – daddy obliged and took our daughter for a walk in the hallways of the CMC maternity ward. After about one minute and a concerned cry for daddy to pick her up, she yakked. All over the hallway. All over my husband. My daughter has thrown up all of two times in her two-year life-span, both were oatmeal related. Pretty sure she didn’t have oatmeal that morning.
Then came the madness in my hospital room of my husband trying to change his shirt while my daughter clung to him, as she wouldn’t dare go to another family member (me included). The nurse came in to help clean up and kindly warned us about a virus going around (translation: get your sicko kiddo out of here).
Within 10 minutes everyone was gone.
My newborn son slept through the whole thing. For a minute I thought my sleep deprivation was getting the best of me and I imagined it.
I guess not everything goes as you plan, no matter how much you think you’ve got it nailed. Coming home was another “magical” time, as my daughter had a double ear infection, my husband the flu and I managed to get an upper respiratory infection in just week one of being home. I know, super magical, right?
Now that we’re entering week two as a family of four, we’re on the mend and managing to get back to some semblance of normalcy. My daughter is warming up to her new baby brother and wants to help and hold him. The magic is there, it just took a little polishing to get there.
Smarties, was the moment your kids met as magical as mine?
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OK, so I have two stories that tie into this! When Ansley my oldest became a sister three times over and the last time was a set of identical twin brothers at the age of 4 1/2, she immediately told us that “she’d be a really good only child.”
The same delivery – SARS and swine flu were the big scare back in February of 2006. My MIL showed up wearing a SARS mask…So she is at home with my girls then 4 & 2. She is super sick but is afraid to tell me b/c I was about to really need some help after birthing twins. I had my boys on Valentine’s Day, it was bliss. Until first thing the next morning, my hubby (who NEVER gets sick) started complaining of muscle aches. He looked a little off and I knew something was up when he asked the nurse to take HIS temperature. She immediately kicked him out of the hospital so I was left totally in a lurch taking care of two newborns in the hospital! And let me tell ya, the nurses have zero interest in being your second hand with twins, I get it – not their job. So my hubby got to sleep his fever off for the next two days while I slaved away in the hospital. It was a rude awakening!