He stands accused

Annabelle & Nate's first meeting
Originally uploaded by kristn1284

Before I go forward I want to go back, back to the day Nate was born, I want to share the story of how Annabelle & Nate began. Going forward, hopefully the stories will show their progression of love & acceptance. As you will see, the first meeting was wrought with accusation and finger pointing, not a good way to start a lifelong relationship.

I mentioned a few months ago I was concerned about Annabelle and the fact that she just didn’t care for babies. No interest in playing with others dolls, none at all in live babies. When we visited my cousin and her newborn all Annabelle walked away with after a 2 hour visit was “He cries”, which he did for all of 2 minutes. The rest of the time he was perfectly pleasant and sweet as only a 1 week old can be. So I bought her a doll, which she really took to. I guess having her own made it loveable. Her doll collection expanded when I came across my old Cabbage Patch (Yes, it was an original for the first year they were made when they were all the craze. Yes, I am old) and Aunt Stacie donated her 2 Cabbage Patches (she is old too). Annabelle was liking dolls, we were reading lots of books about new babies, becoming a big sister, she was talking to brother every day and giving my belly kisses, I thought we were really ready for this.

The day Nate was born also happened to be the day my sister, Karen, had an outpatient procedure scheduled at the same hospital. She was to go under at 9:30am 1 floor up from me. Nate was born at 12:37am, I sent Tom home about 4 am to get a few hours rest as he had to get up with Annabelle as my Mom, Grace, had planned to be at the hospital with my sister. Grace stopped in to see me, then upstairs to see Karen. Once Karen was under she came back down to my room to hang out with us while waiting for the results. Grace was holding Nate in the chair when Tom & Annabelle walked in about 10am. Tom had told her all about how Brother was finally here and they were going to visit both of us. I am resting in my bed, Grace is sitting in the chair with Nathaniel, the door swings open, Annabelle comes barreling in right over to Nate (it was as if she knew where he was, I didn’t even see her look around) she marches right up to him, points right at him and announces “He cries!”, and turns around and walks away.

We were all a little dumbfounded, he wasn’t crying but in her mind that was all he was going to do. She just stood there with her back to him. We got her coat & hat off. I gave her a million hugs and kisses then we tried to introduce her to her Brother once again. I held him on the bed and she crawled up. She would sit with me but would barely look at him. Finally once, I got her to touch his head, but even that was asking a lot. Then she discovered the buttons on my bed. I was convinced she was going to fold us in half while turning on the TV simultaneously calling the nurse. Their visit was short lived. A hospital room was not a place for a 2 year old to hang out, too many things to get into.

Two weeks later I can say it is getting better. She still has not held him, even though I ask her every day. Yesterday she did sit on the couch with him and even give him a kiss, but that was only because my friend Steph was here and she had a camera. Annabelle will do anything for the spotlight. She is very concerned about him. When he does cry she runs to me and says “What is the matter of the Nate?” followed by “Mum Mum give Nate a hug”. She wants me to shut him up. If he cries too long, she cries too. At least I know she has empathy, she has always been the sensitive type. She wants to feed him like the toddlers do in the book with a bottle. As we are still establishing nursing it will be another 2 weeks until I introduce a bottle, but as soon as I do she is the first one to get one. Hopefully that will go a long way in their bonding process.

I guess at this point I can say she has a strong like for him. She likes to give him Eskimo kisses; she likes to pat his head. However she is not happy about him when he is in his swing and she can’t use it for her dolls. She does not like that he spit up a bit on her ladybug changing table cover. The one spark I see is she does give him a sticker every day from her “nap reward” sheet, so maybe there is hope for them yet.