Big Brother Announcement

**This is the first of a handful of posts I've written in the past week but wasn't yet ready to post.**

Written May 6, 2013:

Yesterday we told Nicholas the news about Cashew.  Although, come to think of it, we never used that name.  Hmm, and actually I'm wondering if we should keep it that way.  It will just confuse him and if we stick with "baby" around him then "Cashew" can be our secret code word.

Anyway, back to the point of the post.  We told Nicholas about the baby yesterday.  And I sneakily turned on the video camera, which I had placed unobtrusively on a cabinet, so I could record his reaction.  And his reaction was great!  But the camera apparently didn't actually record.  So we'll have to go based on my pregnancy-brain fuzzy memories of the event.

One of Nicholas' teachers had a baby last month, so he is well versed in the idea of pregnancy, having watched and talked with her through the process.  I opened with: "Nicholas, we have something very exciting to tell you.  I have a baby in my belly!"  And his face lit up and his eyes widened and he said something along the lines of "Really?  Yay!" 

And we talked for a little bit and he was excited and then he caught himself stumbling over pronouns, mostly using feminine pronouns but hesitating.  And so he asked if it is a girl baby or a boy baby.  We don't know yet, but it is exactly the expectation of that being important to his understanding that had already led us to decide to find out the sex and share it.  We just figure it will help make the baby more real to Nicholas.  I honestly don't think he has a preference, but he just likes having all the information.

We showed him pictures, which he was excited about the idea of but then underwhelmed by the actual pictures (which I don't blame him for--you can see the features so clearly during the ultrasound itself but then when they freeze the frame for the print-out it gets really blurry). 

The only other thing of note (at least that I can remember) from the initial conversation was that at one point he asked me if that meant I was going to get married.  I have absolutely no idea where he got that one, but it really fascinated me.  I can't think of anyone he knows or would have heard us talking about who got married when they had a baby or were pregnant.

After a few minutes he was done and ready to move on (back to his work grading papers--can you tell it is finals season here?) but we wanted to make sure to give him the timeline.  So we got out his calendar to show him.  I started by asking him if my belly was as big as Ms. Naomi's.  He laughed at that idea.  So I explained that the baby was still really tiny and had to grow much bigger before it could come out.  So we flipped page by page and went through, "It has to grow for May, and June, and July, and August, and September, and October, and then after Halloween when it is November, then it can come out."

After he did a few minutes of grading

From 2013 May

we asked if he'd like to call anyone to tell them his exciting news and prompted him with members of Joe's family (who didn't know yet and it seemed to be both a good way to tell them and a way for him to feel ownership of it).  And I did get part of the first one of those phone calls on video, so you can see a little of his excitement:

From 2013 May

Given that we have plenty of time to get him acclimated to the idea, we didn't push it much after that, but it just so happened that someone in the complex was moving and had discarded a kid's dresser by the dumpster that will be perfect for Cashew's clothes (in the closet in the kids' room because the room itself is out of space).  I convinced Joe to let me salvage it and it is now in our hallway. 

From 2013 May

Nicholas was very excited about the idea of that being the baby's dresser (although he did at first ask if it was a cage for the baby before we put the drawers back in), which led to a series of additional questions.  And I have to give the kid credit--he is all about the practical questions.  He wanted to know where the dresser was going and when I told him it would go in his room, probably in his closet, it triggered for him a thought of other baby furniture, so he asked where the crib was going to go.  I explained that when the baby is really little it will be in our room but then when it gets a little bigger it will be in a crib in his room.  And his response?  Without any prompting from me, even in tone, he exclaimed: "Oh, thank you, Mommy!  Thank you so much for saying that your baby can sleep in my room!" He then gave me a huge bear hug.  I know that excitement won't last when an actual crying child is in his room, but it made me happy nonetheless.  Also, I find it both odd and cute that he calls it MY rather than the baby or our baby.

Oh, and last note: Nicholas' name suggestion?  Door.  (Although to be fair, he started by asking me what the baby's name was, not making suggestions and only came up with "door" when I asked for his thoughts.).