Our son was born at a local hospital almost one week ago. Mother and baby are both doing fine.
Our daughter (whom I will call Little Sunshine for the rest of this post) went to stay with my wife's parents on the day we went to the hospital. She came to visit with my wife's family on the day of the birth, and two days later, she spent the night with us in the hospital and we all went home (to her parents' house) the next day.
My wife's fear over the past nine months, due to conversations she has had with co-workers and relatives, was that Little Sunshine would be jealous of the attention paid to Baby Brother. She is especially strong-willed, and so far at preschool she shows no effort to share with other kids or show any regards for them.
But we read a book called "I'm a Big Sister Now" with her dozens of times since the summer, and we often asked where Baby Brother was (she would point to Mommy's abdomen).
On the day of the birth, Little Sunshine started crying and raising a fit when I changed the baby's diaper toward the end of the visit. And she was crying "Mommy," "Daddy," and "Baby" when her grandparents took her back home. We took it as a bad sign, but things have been going well since then, and she has wanted to help with bottle feedings and diaper changes and been generally protective of Baby.
Tonight Little Sunshine and I are going back to our home (with my mother), and she will go back to preschool for the first time since Thanksgiving. My wife and the baby will stay with her parents for about a month. Culturally, my wife is supposed to rest as much as possible and do certain things that help her recover from pregnancy and childbirth, which my mother isn't able to do at this point.
