Well, someone around here has baby fever, and it’s not who you think.
Two years after I last tried to see if Simon was interested in playing with a doll (he wasn’t), he has taken to Annabelle the lamb, a present from my old boss Karen that arrived shortly after he did. He holds her, rocks her from side to side while bouncing a bit, lets me know when she’s sleeping or falling asleep, kisses her, and even puts her in his old baby swing. When I try to suggest that he’s running down the batteries on the swing, he looks at me sternly and maintains that “Lambie likes the music. It helps her sleep.”
All righty then!
The catalyst for Simon turning into Daddy Jr. is Anyieth. Once he realized that she wasn’t going to cry all the time, he became very interested in her. The few times I’ve held and rocked her to sleep, Simon has watched me closely. At first, his interest was all in seeing Agotich become “a little Mommy”, but I can now see that he’s quite interested in developing his own fatherly skills.
This interest has given us a great opening to talk about how Matt held and rocked him when he was a baby, how Matt was the one who took care of him in the middle of the night, and how we each had our own methods for getting him to sleep. Simon loves hearing these stories; we’d tell him more if we could remember!
The timing of this paternalistic streak couldn’t be better, either. Because not only is little Anyieth on the scene, but Simon’s best friend Baron is due to have a baby sister this November. Simon is already asking all about her. The most pressing current questions are “Will she fall asleep if you hold her and bounce her?” and “Will she be born without a shirt on?” He doesn’t’ quite understand why babies are born naked.
Oh, and the third question he asks me all the time?
“Why do they (Baron’s parents) want three babies?”
To which I respond each time:
“Because third kids are the best.”
Your brothers might have something to say on that subject.