My baby!
Yesterday, we were at Wednesday night Cubbies (the preschool branch of the AWANA program at our church), where I assist my mother (known to the kids as “Teacher Jeanne”), who is the Cubbie Leader. The Munchkin gets to spend some time with the preschoolers (who still think she is a cute little baby) coloring and playing before she has to go to the nursery while we teach. You have to be three years old to be a Cubbie, and so, off she goes! Baby Boy stays with me and his Grandma, since I am his primary food source and heating up breast milk for him to eat, while feasible for the nursery workers, would not be easy. So he is the current Cubbie mascot, and all the little girls love him and look upon him as a kind of living dolly.
Now, I have a rule about “petting” the baby, which I instituted when the Munchkin was born and all the Cubbies of two years ago thought she was a living dolly – the kids are allowed to touch Baby Boy on the top of his head ONLY. They cannot touch his hands – I do not need preschool germs making their way into my little guy’s mouth. And if a kid slips, we remind the offender and wash hands. I’m not militant, I don’t yell, but I do try to be vigilant, and the kids respond to that and are pretty good about remembering the rule.
Last night, however, the Munchkin took exception to my rules. A little girl who loves babies, and who loves Baby Boy, asked if she could “pet” my baby. I gave my permission, reminding her to only touch his head. She was busy smiling at him, talking to him, and stroking his fine, fuzzy hair when his big bad sister saw this.
She walked right up to the little girl (who is two years older than the Munchkin), grabbed her wrist, and pulled her hand away. “My baby!” she proclaimed.
A little confused, the little girl resumed petting Baby Boy – only to have her hand yanked away again by the Munchkin. “My baby!” she insisted.
My mother and I were watching this exchange with great amusement, but I didn’t want this to break out into a fight, so at this point I removed the Munchkin and took her off to the nursery. She is quite compliant about going there, I’ll give her that. She knows that her friends will be there and that they have some fun toys. The little girl got to continue her petting undeterred, until she got interested in something else.
I was worried that the Munchkin would resent her brother initially, but I also knew that she would never remember life without him after a while. It would seem that “a while” has arrived in two words:
My baby.
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