Big Sister Hailey

Hailey loves Keira. Love, love, loves her. It really is adorable (and frustrating). Hailey loves to play with Keira and help take care of her. She is a great helper in grabbing a burp cloth when Keira spits up, and even helping to clean her up. Every time I change Keira’s diaper and Hailey is around, she grabs a new one for me.

Hailey has been an outstanding helper when Keira is crying. One day I was busy helping Kyle in the garage and couldn’t go inside to calm Keira down. I asked Hailey to just go talk to her. When I came back inside Keira was calm and sucking on her pacifier. Hailey had gone up to the bedroom, got the pacifier out of her bed, and brought it back downstairs and gave it to her. All without my asking. I was very surprised, but also pretty impressed. She knew just what to do.

Just tonight, not long after bedtime, Keira woke up crying. I went up to the girls’ room (I moved Keira in with Hailey probably 6-ish weeks ago) to help Keira settle back down to sleep. Hailey hadn’t been in bed long, and had been playing with some stuffed animals in her bed not too long before. As I walked over to Keira, I heard a little voice whispering. I thought Hailey was still playing with her animals, but she had put them down already. As I listened I realized that Hailey was singing to Keira. She was quietly singing “I Am a Child of God”. Recently I’ve started singing that song with Keira as I rock her for a few minutes to calm her down when she is worked up. I thought that was so sweet of Hailey. She was doing what she has seen me do. It was so much better than Hailey telling Keira to “Be quiet!” like she would do when we first moved the two of them together.

Hailey loves to make Keira smile and laugh. She talks to her and tries to play with her to coax smiles out of her. Recently she’s discovered that if she forces an obnoxious laugh that Keira will also smile. As annoying as it may get, I love watching the interaction between these two.

Sometimes Hailey is not gentle enough with Keira. She has good intentions, and is only copying what she see Kyle and I do. Keira loves to have her arms and legs jiggled and moved around, as if dancing. That’s how Kyle earned her first laugh. Hailey likes to do the same, but she is just too rough with her. We’re afraid she’ll accidentally hurt her. We do have to watch her when she tries to play with Keira.

Hailey has good intentions, but has twice almost killed Keira. Maybe “almost killed” is a little over dramatic, but twice we’ve rescued Keira from something that could have been bad. Hailey once put a peanut in Keira’s mouth. Hailey was snacking on trail mix, and I looked down at my phone for just a second and I heard, “Mom, she’s sucking on it!”. I immediately ran over and fished the peanut out before Keira had a chance to do anything with it. Thank goodness. After that I had a good talk with Hailey about not putting anything but a pacifier in Keira’s mouth.

Keira is currently sleeping in the pack ‘n play, until we get a new bed for Hailey and convert her bed back into a crib. The pack ‘n play isn’t as tall as a crib, so Hailey can reach the top of it. I had Keira sleeping with her bed higher up, so I didn’t have to reach in so far to put her down and pick her up. One morning I must have turned the monitor down too far and kept sleeping after Hailey and Keira had woken up. Kyle was getting ready for work and heard Hailey and Keira. He walked into their bedroom and found Keira completely unswaddled, face down in her bed, crying. Due to her positioning and the slight slope of the bed, she was unable to turn her head to the side, so her face was buried in the mattress. Hailey had unwrapped Keira, and in so doing Keira had rolled onto her stomach. Hailey was doing just what she had seen me do in the mornings when Keira wakes up. I lowered Keira down after that and now Hailey can’t reach her.

Hailey loves sharing a room with Keira. Anytime I take Keira out of the room for any reason, either during naptime or bedtime, Hailey is always so concerned and upset. She wants Keira to sleep in there with her. I have to reassure her that Keira will come back in a little bit.

One day I laid Keira down in Hailey’s bed for a few minutes. Hailey got very excited and got in bed next to her. It was so cute. She shared her animals with her and talked to her. I snapped a few pictures. How could I not?

Hailey may have enjoyed it more than Keira. Given enough time, I’m sure that will change. I really hope these girls are good friends when they grow up. Three years makes a big difference now, but at some point it won’t matter at all.