Adjusting to Big Sisterhood

First picture of our new 4 person family!

The night Malcolm was born was the first (and only) night I’ve ever spent away from Guinevere.  I was a little nervous as to how she would do.  But then, I’ve come home after she’s gone to bed before and left the house before she’s woken up, so I guess it’s not a completely new concept to her to be put to bed or woken up by someone other than mommy.  Fortunately, she had familiar faces surrounding her during her time away from me.  My mom came up to help out and our roommate, “Aunt” Whitney, also helped enormously. 

Perhaps the evening away from each other was harder on me than it was on Guinevere!  Granted, I had plenty of other things to focus on, but there were moments when I lay awake in my hospital bed wondering how my other baby was doing and missing her.  I secretly wished I could just hit a button on the monitor and see her sleeping in her crib.

My mom brought Guinevere over to the hospital to meet Malcolm.  Because we were being discharged that day, we had the great idea that mom would bring G and then we’d all leave together as our new nuclear family of four.  Guinevere was so excited to see me when they arrived!  Her little face lit up when she saw me and she ran over and gave me a huge hug.  Then I introduced her to Malcolm.  She looked at him and said, “baby!”  Then she turned to me and said, “Mommy!” and gave me another hug.  Unfortunately, all the tests and check ups that needed to be done at the hospital caused us to be discharged significantly later than G’s bedtime, so the plan to leave together didn’t work out.  So we had to deal with the separation pains that accompany removing an almost two year old from her mother after they haven’t seen each other much in the past 24 hours (i.e. toddler screaming “Mommy!  Moooommmmmyyyy!” as she is carried out of the maternity ward).

 

Guinevere was almost more interested in the tumbler of water than in meeting her new brother!

The adjustment to being a big sister seems to be going relatively well.  I will admit that I was a little concerned over how Guinevere would react to having a new baby in the house.  She’s such a mommy’s girl and demands much of my attention.  So far, though, she’s taking sharing me really well.  She seems to enjoy having her little brother around.  Every time she sees Malcolm, she goes up to him and says, “Baby!  Malcolm!” When he’s sleeping, she says, “Sleeping!”  She’s even brought him blankets and tried to share her toys with him.  This morning I was nursing him on the couch and I ended up under a pile of books and toys that she brought over to share.

The main issue we have with her is explaining that the baby is fragile and trying to make sure she is gentle with him.   She likes to climb up on the couch next to me as I’m nursing him, but then will often end up almost sitting on his head because she wants to be close to me too.  We try to limit her to just touching his feet – to try to mitigate the toddler germs, but we’re not very successful.  She often ends up gently poking his belly or head.  She likes to point at his head and say, “hair.”  

Here's a video of G and Malcolm "playing" together:

Having two kids so close together is definitely going to be a challenge.  I am five years older than my sister, so by the time she came around, I could play by myself and could understand when my mom couldn’t pay 100% attention to me.  I have a feeling this baby will end up being worn in a carrier a lot more around the house than G ever was.  I’ve only had to take care of both kids by myself twice so far.  The first time, I strapped Malcolm to me using a cloth carrier (like a Moby wrap, but I can’t remember the exact brand).  That enabled me to follow G around the house and have the use of both hands.  I even attempted to nurse him in it . . . though I think carrier nursing will take a bit more practice.  If anyone has any tips on that, please feel free to share. 

My Sister's Wedding

Two weeks ago, my little sister got married.  I have only one sibling – just Sharon and me.  Sure, we fought when we were little, but now we’re super close.  She’s one of my best friends and I call her (almost) daily.  Whether she picks up is another story . . . but to be fair, she lives in New York, and I usually call her to pass the time while I’m stuck in traffic on my horrendous commute home.  I can’t expect anyone to answer the phone on a regular basis at 8 or 9 pm on a weeknight.

On the wedding day morning, the plan was that the female contingent of the bridal party would meet for breakfast at the hotel super early at 7am.  Then the groom’s side would meet an hour later after we had vacated and started to get prettified.  (My family is not super traditional, but one of the few traditions we cling to is that the Bride and Groom must not see each other the day of the wedding before the ceremony.)

Guinevere hung out with the girls while we got pretty.  She was really well behaved!  She seemed perfectly happy to just sit on the bed in the hotel room and play with her toys while we prepared.  At one point, she got tired, so I sang her a naptime song and laid her down.  She fussed a little and then fell asleep.

Once we were all ready, the girls headed over to the venue.  I needed a little extra time to get Guinevere in her flower girl dress, so I went on a later shuttle.  There’s a great story to the flower girl dress Guinevere wore: a couple years ago, when my dad, uncle and I were cleaning out my grandmother’s house to get it ready to rent out after we moved her into assisted living for Alzheimer’s, I came across a Nordstrom’s box with my grandmother’s writing on it.  It said, “For my great-granddaughter.”  She didn’t have any great grandchildren at the time, so I kept the box for whichever of the cousins had a little girl first.  As I was getting the nursery ready before Guinevere was born, I came across this box again.  I had stashed it in the closet and completely forgotten about it.  It was then that I realized I would be the one having the first great granddaughter!  I opened the box and pulled out this adorable little white dress with pink florets.  It was perfect for a flower girl dress!  I sent a picture to my sister to see if she thought it would work for her wedding.  She loved it!  My grandmother has since slipped even further into her Alzheimer’s – to the point where we weren’t able to have her at the wedding, so it was really nice to be able to have a piece of her there .

Guinevere in her flower girl dress.

The wedding was at a place called Twin Oaks in San Marcos, just North of San Diego.  The venue is a historic schoolhouse and its surrounding grounds.  The girls relaxed with some Prosecco cocktails in the schoolhouse before the ceremony while the boys had the run of the outside grounds. 

The girls with Prosecco!

The ceremony was beautiful.  My sister looked gorgeous!  Aaron carried Guinevere down the aisle and then handed her off to my aunt (he was standing up on Will’s side).  She fussed a little, but then took a nap while my aunt held her through most of the ceremony.

Aaron & Guinevere right before heading down the aisle.

After the ceremony, we took the standard bridal party pictures.  Once Guinevere and I were dismissed, I found a quiet room to nurse in.  I brought pumped bottles for her, but this helped with things not being quite so, er, painful.  G took another nap in her stroller during the cocktail hour.  We made our grand entrance (G still napping in the stroller) and then speeches happened right away!  I knew I was going to have to give a speech – I just didn’t realize it was going to be one of the first events of the reception.  I think my speech went well – I got several laughs, so that’s good.  Here’s the speech (in case you’re interested).

Flower girl has a crush on the ring bearer.

Guinevere did really well throughout the entire wedding.  The one downside is that there were so many new people that G got a little overwhelmed.  She all of a sudden decided that only mommy could hold her – not even Aaron or my parents could keep her happy!  So I missed almost half the reception feeding her a bottle.  I’m kind of sad because I really wanted to dance a lot more than I did.  Though, the songs I danced to, were a lot of fun!  I even brought Guinevere out on the dance floor with me!

At the end of the night, G fell asleep in my arms and Aaron wrapped his coat around the both of us.  I didn’t get nearly as many pictures as I wanted (kind of hard to do when you’re running around being MOH), but I have priceless memories that I will cherish forever.

Good luck to the new Mr. & Mrs. DeBeauchamp . . . now I’m gonna go get me a glass of wiiiiine!*

*read the MOH speech if you don’t get that reference. 

Maid of Honor Speech

**Note: this is what I wrote out the night before the wedding . . . not necessarily what actually came out of my mouth on the wedding day.**

Hello everyone.  As most of you know, I’m Sharon’s big sister . . . "big" sister . . . hahaha 

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to think of what to say in this speech ever since Sharon told me she was getting married.  As you know, Will and Sharon got engaged after a whirlwind 4 month courtship.  So I didn’t really have any fun anecdotes to share about their relationship at the ready in my head - in fact, I had only met Will once, and that was when he flew out to California for 23 hours. (Fortunately, I have gotten to spend more time with him in the past year and a half, and I can truly say welcome to the family)  So, instead, I will use this time to tell Will about the fabulous family he is marrying into . . . and of course, the amazing woman that he is marrying: my sister.  

Will - Sharon is one of the most beautiful, warm and loving human beings to ever walk the planet.  She’s not just my sister, but also one of my best friends.  As most people here can attest, Sharon and I are very close and we share some fantastic memories, replete with inside jokes, some of which I shall now divulge to you . . . because really, what kind of big sister would I be if I didn’t bring up some fun, and maybe slightly embarrassing stories with 100 of our closest friends and family?

Did you know, Will, that I predicted Sharon would marry you?  Oh yes, I did!  Except, your name at the time was Orlo Yazzi.  I don’t know if you ever played this game when you were a kid, but Sharon and I used to do this all the time.  You bend the pop tab on a soda can back and forth until it falls off and as you’re doing this, you go through the alphabet.  Whatever letter the tab falls off on, is the first initial of the person you are going to marry.  Then you do it again, and that letter is the first initial of the last name of the person you are going to marry.  One time on a camping trip, Sharon got an O and a Y.  I decided to think up the most ridiculous name possible: Orlo Yazzi.  I think I might have even come up with some sort of silly song to tease Sharon about it.  I was thinking about this story the other night, and honestly, you kind of look like I had always imagined Orlo Yazzi to look!  So there we go, on the advice of Dr. Pepper and Mr. Squirt, I predicted Sharon would marry you even though I didn’t even know you.

Now I will leave you with one final story.  There was one summer I went out to New York to visit Sharon.  She was living up near Washington Heights, which for those of you who don’t know, is a relatively rough neighborhood.  Her apartment was great - it was just the neighborhood was a bit rough around the edges.  Anyway, we had had a long day walking all over New York City and wanted to just have a quiet night in with some wine.  We went to the corner liquor store looking for some Chardonnay.  This was one of those liquor stores where the guy running the store is behind bulletproof glass and you have to tell him what you want and then he slides it to you through a little door in the glass.  So anyway, Sharon and I were there trying to decide on a bottle of Chardonnay, which is surprisingly difficult to do when you can’t pick up and examine the bottles.  And this man, holding a bottle of Hennesy that he had just purchased, came up to us and asked what we were looking for.  

We said, "Umm, some Chardonnay?"  

He says, "Chardo-wha?  What is that?"  

We said, "Wine."  

He says, “Wiiiiiiine????  I don’t think I’ve ever had wine before.  So, tell me about this wiiiine - is it going to make me feel like a new man?  Or is it going to get me f***ed up?  Because I ain’t looking to feel like a new man!”  

We bought our wine and laughed all the way home.

So, in honor of that man in that liquor store so many moons ago, let’s all raise our own glasses of wiiine (or whatever you have), and I will say this, “Just like a fine wine, marriage should only get better with age and maturity, so I hope every day of your marriage ‘makes you feel like a new man.’ (or woman as the case may be).” Welcome to the family.  Cheers!