Little Mommy

It didn't take Bree long, once she got a baby brother, to slip quickly and easily into being a second little mother to him. It's a pretty big help because she does really watch out for him, especially now that he's mobile enough to start finding those inevitable things that he shouldn't be putting in his mouth. Sometimes before I can get to him, Bree will notice he's managed to get something he shouldn't and march over there saying, "Noah! Give me that! You don't put that in your mouth!" Then she snatches it away from him. In fact, this is a responsibility she enjoys perhaps a bit too much since she ends up sometimes snatching anything he picks up away from him, even his own toys! :) Actually though, she plays really well with him, even asking if he can play in her room sometimes and incorporating him into her pretend scenarios and everything. So I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later that she'd combine the two categories and turn him into her own living dolly.

She put this bib on him and exclaimed "Now he's a girl!" (As you recall, she did ask for a sister when she found out she was getting a sibling.) And then she proceeded to start "feeding" him. (Something she begs me to let her do when Noah eats his baby food but I've been reluctant to let her try thus far.)

And Noah obligingly sat and ate imaginary food off her play fork.

He didn't really seem to mind eating pretend food, or even wearing a pink bib and "being a girl" either. (Perhaps because he was wearing a manly camo outfit underneath.)

It's funny to me to watch them play like this.

Besides making sure he doesn't eat pieces of paper and turning him into her personal dolly, Bree mothers him in other ways too. When he cries she'll often suggest, "I think this crabby baby needs a nap!" And then, on the other side of nap time she eagerly awaits for him to wake up and will come running up to me, "Noah's awake! I saw his eyes staring at me!" (Which is sometimes because she's opened the door to his room and woken him up herself.) She's also usually listening very carefully to what Mom, or other adults around her, are saying, soaking it all in and then repeating most of it, trying to appear grown up. Especially in regards to Noah, or mothering Noah. In this last category she made me laugh out loud the other day...

I have a book called "What to Expect: The First Year" that's all about what your baby will be doing each month, what milestones you can expect them to be meeting at what ages and etc. One of the "achievements" listed that the baby should be able to do by 5 months is, and I quote "pay attention to a raisin or other very small object." Now, I think they mean to say that the baby shows interest in small objects but the way they've phrased it is just pretty ridiculous. It's so ludicrous that my mom and I laugh and joke about it quite often. Mom will call me up just to say, "Is Noah paying attention to raisins yet? We don't want him to fall behind developmentally." And then we'll both laugh our fool heads off about it. This conversation repeated itself in person during my mom's recent visit here and apparently didn't go by Bree unnoticed.

While she and Noah were playing happily in Bree's room, I took the opportunity to walk down to the kitchen and grab a cup of coffee, only to walk back into the room and notice Noah happily gumming on something. "Bree, what's in Noah's mouth?" I asked her. "Did you see what he put in there." "I gave him a raisin." she said. And then added quite innocently, "Yeah, I just thought he might be interested in it."

I almost burst a gut. :)