Three Babies?

No, we aren't having another baby. I did get your attention though, didn't I?

Alessia has a doll who goes by the name of "Dolly." While Alessia was becoming increasingly attached to Dolly before Olivia was born, Dolly is now an ever-present part of our life. Dolly comes to the grocery store and on walks. She is taken up to bath time and is critical to napping. Alessia has also started mothering Dolly, making her the third baby in my house. It began with swaddling. Alessia will present me with Dolly, a blanket, and the request "wrap Dolly." She will then put Dolly in the swing and say "shhhhhhhh." She offers Dolly Olivia's binky and uses my phrase "try binky." Here she is carrying Dolly in the sling I made for them after watching Alessia try to get Dolly into my sling. This mothering is very sweet to watch, especially since it is happening at Alessia's initiative.

 

On another note, many people talk about how parents block out the more difficult memories related to their children's early years. I thought it was a process that happened when children got older, but apparently it starts immediately. Yesterday I interrupted Olivia in the middle of a feeding in order to change one of Alessia's diapers (it was a stinky one and just couldn't wait). Well Olivia became so hysterical that she wouldn't take the breast again, and after fifteen minutes of trying to convince her that what she wanted was right in front of her, I finally had to swaddle her and walk around bouncing up and down while holding a binky in her mouth. After about five minutes of that, she was calm enough to eat again. Later on I remembered that we had to stop burping Alessia halfway through a bottle when she was about the same age. Otherwise when we took the bottle out of her mouth to burp her, she would become so hysterical that she couldn't see the bottle in front of her nose. That was only 20 months ago, and I had already started to forget.

 

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