My baby girl

Sometime in the next month, Sydney will become a big sister. We keep trying to get her ready for the changes. We have read social stories (that's the fancy educator's word for the books like I'm a Big Sister and The New Baby). We have given Sydney her own baby doll version of a lot of the baby's things... Sydney's doll high chair, swing, and even pack n play. We have told her that there's a baby in mama's tummy. We tell her how proud we are of her when she show empathy to other children, especially younger children. We have a hospital present (more about that later) all ready for her.

But really, nothing in the world really prepared me for the arrival of Sydney. No experience with other people's babies made me understand how much you can worry about your own. No book told me what it would be like to be responsible for a new life. No conversation with other new mothers told me how much I could love another human being.

So, of course, there just isn't a way to completely prepare Sydney for the change her life is about to go through. I hope, though, that her father and I have given her enough in the last two and half years to trust us, to know that we love her, and to be able to cope with the change. I think we have.