Mama's boy

I'm on week 31 of this pregnancy. It seems like I'm always saying that I can't believe how fast it's going, but it really doesn't seem real that in nine weeks we're going to have another baby in the family. I vacillate between being impatient for her to get here and wanting her to wait just a little while longer.

I'm really cherishing these last few months with Jack. Obviously some days are better than others, but overall he has been really fun. I don't know if it's the age or the fact that he senses that his tenure as an only child is quickly coming to an end, but he has been such a mama's boy lately. While this can be a lot of work for me, it also melts my heart how much he loves me and wants to be with me.

He has been really into playing with my hair lately. He had once pretended that he was going to use my hair as a broom to sweep the cobwebs off his little playhouse. I protested, and ever since then one of his favorite little games is to tell me, "I want to sweep your hair on the spiderwebs on my playhouse!" I'll say, "No!" and he'll say, "Yeah! I like to do that!" For some reason he thinks this game is hilarious.

Another thing he likes to do is wrap my hair around my face or use it to cover my mouth. And then he'll say, "Where's your mouth, Mommy?" or "You're in a hair bonnet!" He'll also sometimes just grab me by the hair if he thinks I'm going to leave his side and say, "You're locked!"

Of course, there are times when the intense possessiveness and jealousy is trying. Jack's biggest tantrums occur when someone else touches me or I touch someone else. This includes Tom or the doctor or a child who is climbing all over him and hurting him. If I had the energy, I would ride out the tantrums and try to make him learn to deal with it. But he gets so upset and we'd just gotten though such a tough time, I don't have the heart right now.

And it would be one thing if I thought this possessiveness would spill over to the baby, so that he wouldn't let me hold her, but actually it's quite the opposite. It's almost like he sees himself, me, and her as the Three Musketeers. He tells me that only I can hold her. He says that the three of us are "super cute," but no one else (including poor Daddy) is. He keeps asking me if she's big and when is she going to come. But I think that last part is because we told him she'd bring him a train set when she's born.

I've been trying to prepare him for what life is going to be like after she arrives. I'd heard enough stories about children asking when their parents are going to bring the baby back to the hospital that I wanted to make sure he knew that his sister is here to stay forever. I asked him, "How long will we keep her?"

But Jack reassured me.

"All of the time," he said. Like, duh, Mommy.

The conversation about what was going to happen when we have to go to the hospital to have the baby didn't go nearly so well. He got very upset about the doctor's role in the whole process: "I don't want the doctor to do anything to my baby!"

He tells other children at the park randomly, "That's MY mommy!" as if any of them were coveting me. But he assures me that he knows that I'll also be the baby's mommy.

"You're my Mommy and Violet's Mommy, and I just want you to stay with me all of the time. Or else I might be own-wee [lonely]."