Newborn Diaries | Brotherly Love

Brotherly love

This is a topic that does something to every inch of my being. Brotherly love. When we learned we were pregnant with another boy my mind could only begin to imagine how my heart would feel the first time I watched Cruze display any sort of affection towards his baby brother. Being a baby himself, I could not quite imagine exactly how he would respond to a newbie in his home. Would there be jealousy? Resentment? Or just excitement? When Caleb was born Cruze seemed interested in this tiny little person when he met him at the hospital. But the moment was over the second he spotted the baby's pacifier and then of course, all attention was on how to successfully claim that paci as his own. 

There goes that pacifier again :/ 

 When we brought Caleb home, Cruze definitely noticed a shift in the home. Things were just not "normal" to him and his behavior was evidence of this. Since we had family in town to help us care for Cruze, it seemed like Cruze purposely distanced himself from me. This killed me. I didn't want him to feel abandoned or betrayed. I wanted him to feel safe, secure and confident in the fact that I still loved him the same way I did before. At the same time, I obviously had to give a lot of my energy to Caleb. I had no choice. Since Cruze is a very active and curious child we had to do our best to keep distance between the two boys. He would want to hold him but the moment he got too close, he would grab at him as fast and hard as he could. I realize that he had no intent to hurt him. He just simply did not understand. This was not a new toy that he could tote around and toss in the air. This was a very tiny and fragile little person. His baby brother who was here to stay. So we did what we thought was best. The two boys were barely ever in the same room at the same time. This is something I now know was wrong.

When the time came for me to be home with both of them by myself, Phillip and I started making an effort to let Cruze kiss on baby Caleb and touch his toes, hands and belly. We would tell him to do "nice". When Caleb would cry we started looking to Cruze for help with comforting Caleb. Now? Cruze has become to much more gentle with his baby brother. When Caleb is unhappy Cruze immediately looks at him with the sweetest, love filled eyes and says "is okay baby cay-bub". Yesterday as Caleb was having a complete meltdown in the car, Cruze turned to him and after tilting his head to the side, he said "awww, is okay" and then.. proceeded to sing to him the Barney theme song. Seriously. These are now the moments I live for.

"Hold Baby?" the words I hear all day long

He now puts the boppy on like a pro and SO fast. He just gets so excited to hold his baby

I look forward to watching their love and bond grow. And to think I was once so scared about somehow robbing Cruze's role as the only child. No. I took nothing from him. I simply gave him one of the best gifts he could ever get. That of a sibling and friend for life.