Big brother

Last Friday afternoon, one of my friends from a summer class came over to visit with her four-month-old daughter, Briar. I was excited to see a "little baby" again, and I was looking forward to seeing how Oliver would respond to such a young child. They got here late in the afternoon, and I actually had to wake up Oliver to come join us. He was very standoffish at first. Briar was on the floor, cooing and reaching out for Lucy's ear. (Lucy, of course, had not hesitation in joining Briar on her blanket, thank you very much.) He stood to the side for a few minutes, then sat on my lap for a few minutes before he started to smile and relax a little bit. I swear you could see the questions rolling in his head. Who is this? Why is she here? Why is she touching my dog? Is this the baby everyone's been talking about?

After about ten minutes he regained his normal composure and played around the room and showed off for Katie and Briar. They had to leave 30-40 minutes later when Briar started to tire out in preparation for her evening nap (I'd forgotten how obvious it is when a true baby gets sleepy. Oliver just gets more and more wired now!) We walked them out to the car so that we could get the mail, and Ollie got kind of upset as they left. He kept asking, "Baby go?" I tried to explain that Baby Briar and her mommy were going in their car back to their house. And several times that evening and in later days he's mentioned, "Baby go house in car."

This morning, when it was time to get up and get dressed, I let Oliver pick out his shirt (as is now the custom). He decided to wear his "big brother" shirt that Aunt Laura gifted him on his birthday. I had planned to save it for when the baby came, but Wes broke it out at some point and it since joined the rotation. Someone, probably at daycare, also taught him what the shirt says. He spent all this morning pointing to his shirt and saying, with great earnestness, "Big brother." I asked him at breakfast, "Oliver, if you're the big brother, who's the baby sister?" He looked at me and said, "Baby go house in car."

So evidently he did think that Baby Briar was the person we've been talking about, which also explains his hesitation to let her leave that day. I tried to explain to him that our baby was still in mommy and would be joining us in a few weeks. It's hard to say how much he understands, but there's obviously some connections he's making. Hopefully, when the time comes, he won't suggest sending his baby off to Briar's house in a car!