Adjusting

It was always an unknown answer how Ace would truly react to having his sister 'on the outside' - as much as he liked her on the inside, would he truly like her once she was around, taking away from his attention? All signs so far point to yes. He loves to talk to sister - although his most common phrase is "Wake up, Sister!" Mae does tend to sleep an awful lot for his liking and he'd much rather her be awake - because when she is awake she stares at Ace with great fascination!

Overall, I'd say thus far the transition to 'official' big brother has been great. He has been a bit more whiny this week, but nothing that is so awful or impossible to manage. Unfortunately for him - the arrival of his sister was timed along with a very common road toward independence and then infamous phase of saying "No" to everything. He says it so much that he says it even when he really does want to do the thing we asked of him, so he quickly changes his mind. We're attempting to train him to say "Let me think about it" as his initial response - since he is so desperate to have a knee jerk reaction - we're hoping to avoid the "no" and provide him with a more thought provoking avenue of response. We also think that while a phrase will take a tad longer to implement it will be far less annoying that teaching him to say "maybe" as his knee-jerk response. Ultimately we'd prefer him to quietly think about it prior to answering, but that won't happen. ;-)

Ace continues to nap and sleep very well. It amazes me how far we've come from September when he FIRST began sleeping through the night on his own, followed by the end of October finally sleeping every night in his bed. We haven't continued to sticker program past December. He is doing great to simply sleep in his own bed all by his self because it is just what he is supposed to do. So we're very proud of him. His sister's crying in general is thankfully minimal in the night - she really only fusses when she wants to eat, which is a natural plug ;-) so Ace continues to sleep well in the night. We try to curb loudness during night/nap time diaper changes by closing her door to do them. So far so good in uninterrupted brother sleep.

It is great having Loving Husband home for paternity leave. It certainly allows for Ace to have two parents around to balance the attention and maybe even provide a bit more extra that we otherwise wouldn't have prior to Mae's arrival. They seem to have a good time playing pretend and cooking 'Ace soup' or 'Ace steak' - they love to run around - Ace has recently begun to learn the idea of hide-n-seek and enjoys playing that as well.

If you ask Ace if he likes having his sister here he'll giggle and smile and say "I do!" He is doing great and is a very loving big brother!