A big sister is born

When I was pregnant with Elise, Kalina was excited about the new baby. When Elise was born, Kalina happily, and oh-so-gently, touched Elise's head and hands and feet, and kissed her, too. We talked a lot about Elise, and about baby Kalina, too.

After about a month of that, Kalina became bored with the whole baby thing and pretty much ignored her little sister except for reminding us in her most pitiful voice that "Elise cries" and including Elise in her list of family: "and Kalina, and Mommy, and Daddy, and Elise, and Kalina will go to the park," for instance.

And then a couple of days ago, after weeks of propganda from Mommy ("someday, you and Elise will play together and have So Much Fun, and you'll have to teach her things!"), Kalina of her own free will and independent thought sat down by Elise's playmat and started showing Elise her collection of small plastic animals.

"A cow," said Kalina, carefully placing a little brown cow on its side in front of Elise.

"MOOOOO!" she vehemently added (Kalina just does the best moo.).

"A horse," said Kalina, lining a little horse up next to the cow. And then, a very realistic "Neeeiiiiggghhhh!"

Then on to the pig, and the rest. Pretty soon, Elise had a nice little collection of farm animals in front of her, not to mention a master's degree in animal sounds.

And this may have been the highlight of my week. May this be the beginning of two girsl nicely playing together and not fighting over things like little farm animals at all. It was, indeed, So Much Fun.

We think Elise is warming up to Kalina, too. At first, Big Sister most represented a threat to Elise's physical safety and her ability to get any kind of good-quality attention from Mommy or Daddy. Now, Big Sister is a pleasant diversion from the mundane routine of naps, diaper changes and playmat stints, not to mention feedings.

Elise, with her blossoming ability to laugh, has decided things that Kalina does, such as squats in her crib holding onto the rail, are just hilarious. We all have a good laugh, me and Matt more out of relief that the girls are getting along than anything else.

We've been working on sharing already, among other things. Like most 2-year-olds, Kalina is a strong supporter of sharing--as long as her own toys aren't up for grabs. So far, sharing is going okay: At playtime, Elise can play with one of her toys at a time, and any toy she's not playing with Kalina hoards in a pile. If Elise so much as lets go of her toy for a second, Kalina pounces on it and adds it to her stack. Then I make Kalina give Elise another toy. Other times, Kalina mounds Elise's toys all around her so the poor baby is rather surrounded and probably quite overstimulated. Fortunately, I have months to get the sharing situation evened out before Elise is likely to notice.

It helps, too, that Kalina doesn't know that most of Elise's toys, clothes and baby equipment once belonged to her. I would imagine that as Elise graduates from rattles and teethers to small farm animals, sharing will become more difficult. I'm hoping that the girls will be too busy playing happily together to notice.

Of course, Kalina helps out with my baby-related tasks as well (Kalina is a great helper). Beyond alerting me to the fact that I left the baby monitor on even after getting Elise up from her nap (which really annoys Kalina), she can be quite useful, too. For instance, the other day I informed Kalina I needed to wake Elise up from her nap. Kalina followed me into Elise's room and promptly turned on the lamp. Poor Elise was rather startled out of her cozy sleep, but I have to give Kalina credit: her idea worked more quickly and effectively than my plan of gently rubbing Elise's tummy would've.

And so, from "sharing" to "helping," we clearly have a big sister on our hands. I'm pretty sure that, one way or another, Kalina will be a great one.