Alyce Meets Her New Brother

Today Alyce got to meet her new brother. Brother Luke as she likes to call him was born last night. Alyce is staying with Grams and Pa Pa so that Mom and I can get situated with her new brother.

Grams and Pa Pa brought Alyce to the Hospital just before lunch. I met them at the entrance because I wanted to introduce Alyce to her brother. I took Alyce to the gift shop to get Mom some flowers and then we went upstairs.


When Alyce first saw Mommy she didn't quite know what to think. She seemed reserved and almost scared of Mom. I think seeing her in a hospital bed was quite unnerving. She got over her initial apprehension and started crawling over the couch in the room not even noticing her brother in the bassinet. That all changed when she hear brother Luke make some noise and move a bit. Alyce squealed, said "Baby!", and dropped everything to see her baby brother. We gave her a bench to stand on so she could get a better look. She was enamored with Luke. She continued to look at him for quite a while, but never reached out a hand to touch him.


After a while Alyce grew a bit tired of Luke; this was when we gave her, her presents from Luke. Mom had purchased some sticker activity books ahead of time for this moment. Mom is so smart when it comes to stuff like this.

To give Mom a break and some Alyce and me time I took Alyce downstairs to the cafeteria to each some lunch, just the two of us. The trip was uneventful and didn't warrant a lot of attention here, but one moment did stand out. While sharing a hamburger Alyce spotted my Daddy bracelet that allows Luke to be left in my care. Alyce pointed to the bracelet, said "Mommy", and burst into tears. I'm not exactly sure what she was crying about; most likely worried about Mommy sitting in the hospital bed. We got past all that and she was fine for the rest of lunch and the afternoon.

Big Girl Bed: Finality

Tonight Mom and I are making a final stand on getting Alyce into a big girl bed. For the last few weeks we have been updating our front bedroom to be her new room. This weekend we finally finished her room and it is now time to get her out of the nursery.



To help ease the transition we threw Alyce a bye bye crib party. The point of this party was to get Alyce excited about her new room and provide an opportunity to say goodbye to her old room. Grams, Pa Pa, Jeff, and Liz all came over to celebrate plus they gave presents. We ordered pizza and cake and ice cream. Between dinner and desert we brought everyone upstairs for the symbolic moment where Alyce changed rooms. Mom had Alyce take her favorite stuffed animals from her crib and put them in her new room (extremely cute and sad). After that I disassembled her crib and it was moved downstairs. At first Alyce didn't seem to realize what was going on. She thought us taking down the bars off the crib was kind of cool. Once all of the pieces were gone she looked around and began to understand that gravity of the situation.


When bedtime approached things started to get interesting. I took Alyce upstairs to get ready for bed. She walked into her room, stood where her crib was, and burst into tears. She was wanting her crib and crying for me to "fix it". Let me tell you it tore me up to see her sad from something I did.

Coming soon the aftermath of Alyce's first night in a new room and bed.