Predicting the Future

My two boys have both been exhibiting behaviour lately that I think gives us a glimpse into how they will be around the new baby in 11 weeks.

===

Josh has become even more of a velcro-baby than he was when he was just weeks old. He has started clinging to Amber and cries and pouts quite a bit. The last few nights he's come into our bed around 1:00 AM and rolled around and kicked us until the morning. Last night he came into our room and I put up with about 3 minutes of this and decided it was time for a change.

I took him back to his bed and tried to put him down. I lay beside him for a few seconds but he's screaming and kicking and pointing at my room yelling, "This way! This way! NO!! This way!!"

This eventually wakes up Daniel (who's sharing a room with him again) and he covers his ears with his pillow and yells back, "Too loud!"

So, I take Josh back to our room and set him up on the floor with a big body pillow as a mattress and his pillow and blanket. This just aggravated him even more. So, for the next hour or so, I had a two year old screaming in my face and trying to climb up on my bed. Man, it's tough being tough. He eventually wore himself out and fell asleep.

I was pretty happy, but a few hours later, I hear a soft, sweet voice next to my ear say, "Daddy? Help up please?" He'd had a very rough night and I think he learned his lesson, so I pulled him up and cuddled him to sleep - no kicking.

This would have just been a fairly normal night, barely worthy of comment, but then we had naptime.

Amber put Josh down in his own bed this afternoon for a nap. He seemed to be cuddled up "nice and cozy" and ready for a few hours of dreamytime under his Nemo blanket. Amber went into the spare room next to his to do some computer work while Daniel and I were down the hall watching TV or something.

I came down a while later to see how the naptime was going and peeked in. I couldn't see Josh. I went to ask Amber, "Where's Joshie?"

"In his bed."

I go and take a better look in his room. "Nope, not in his bed or Daniel's."

We both have the same idea and go to our room. We crack the door open a bit and see a little turkey sleeping quietly on our bed. What's it going to take to keep him in his own bed?

===

Daniel's story is short but just as telling.

Yesterday we were trying to set up our bedroom and found that we had room for the bassinet. We set it up in the corner and it fit just perfectly. Daniel came in and said, "Is that the baby's bed? Is that the baby's crib? The blue and white crib with polka-dots?"

"Yes it is."

Later that day he came to me and said, "Daddy, I gave the baby all my toys to share." We peeked in the bassinet and he had put in his pillow and flashlight and his blue bedtime bear - all his favorite things, his most necessary bedtime stuff.

It seems like Daniel is going to do very well with the new baby. He's great at sharing. He's so loving and caring and thoughtful.

Josh, on the other hand may be the jealous, regressive type. I can imagine him trying to jump up on Amber's lap when she's holding or feeding the new little one.

We'll see how this works out