Mother of Shea

While Shea is allowed to visit Harper in the NICU, and has done so once, we're trying to keep his routine as normal as possible, which means preschool for him while we're off at the hospital. But we do want him to be prepared for the day, hopefully sometime soon, when she comes home, so we've been showing him pictures at night to remind him that his little sister exists.

He loves the pictures almost as much as loves my breast pump. although the machine is the clear winner.

Tonight I had a random attack of crying at the dinner table. "Don't cry," he said, immediately. "Why are you crying, Mommy?"

"I'm a little sad because baby Harper is sick," I told him.

Later, as we were looking at pictures, he asked when baby Harper was coming home. "I don't know," I told him, cautiously, hesitant to say anything about her getting better. "Hopefully soon."

I pushed a little further. "Shea," I began, "Baby Harper is very sick, and she might need a lot of our help taking care of her when she gets home."

"Yes," said Shea, "and then when she gets bigger, she'll get all better and then she can walk!"

My heart broke a little.

"Shea," I told him, "because baby Harper is sick, she might not walk for a long time."

"That's OK," he told me. "When she gets bigger, I will hold her hand, so she won't run away and then she won't get sick. Because I will hold her hand."

Best big brother ever.

If I accomplish nothing else in my life, I may very well be raising one of the kindest, sweetest, most delightful boys ever to walk the Earth. I am so very proud and lucky to be Shea's mom.