He Knew...

“I KNEW SHE WOULD BE JUST LIKE THIS.”  


 

Jackson asks, almost every night, if he can put Emily to bed (I can’t subject him to that yet because it still takes a while because she plays with her feet and laughs and sings and does all kinds of things to stay awake longer) or if he can sing to her before bedtime.  He helps me put on her nighttime diaper and he helps me turn on her sound machine and he picks out her clothes for the next day.  Whenever we make a plan about anything, Jackson says “But what about Emily??” (as if we'd somehow forget about her).  He sees her in the morning ready for her school and says "Oh Emily, you look so beautiful!"  He reads books to her at night - even if she isn't always a calm and quiet audience.  He loves to bring her to his school to show her off to his friends and teachers.  He and Graham even recently played dress-up with her (a friend of mine brought over a bunch of her daughter’s old dress-up clothes) – which is not something they would choose to do on their own. (I foresee a rehearsal dinner video showing these one day down the road!)

 

We are constantly asking Graham to stop squeezing Emily or to stop trying to carry her around all the time or to stop lifting up her shirt to poke her belly button.  His response:  “I can’t stop myself.  She’s just so cute!”  He loves to show her how to play games.  He also likes to help her with supper because he likes the feel of her feet on his knees as he faces her to eat.  He loves helping her color or helping her go down steps.  He and Jackson both LOVE to teach her new words (latest one: "poopy." Sigh...).  Emily sometimes gets mad at Graham because he is constantly trying to hold her, but she loves to play with him and he is very patient with her and cheers for her efforts.

 

 

They love to help her slide and swing. 

 

 

They 've taught her to cheer for Auburn - their favorite team.

 

They have willingly handed over their stuffed animals because "she wanted them."

 

They love to walk her to her Sunday School class.

 

On one night fairly recently, Jackson let Emily come into his room and open all of his desk drawers (she knows markers and art materials are in there).  She took the tops off of most of the markers and then spent about 25 minutes slowly and carefully decorating his desk with twisted pieces of colored tape (she would come over to me with the tape roll and say "tape mama!" and then would twist the pieces and put them into designs on the desk drawers - and then repeat).  
 

 

On the night she created the tape masterpiece on his desk, as she was all over his room semi-destroying other things and basically naked except for a black and white dress-up tutu and a diaper, Jackson surveyed the scene for a while and then said to me, “Mom – when we were thinking about getting a sister, did you think she would be like this?”  I said that I really didn’t know what to expect or whether she would be a tiny, crying girl or a quiet girl or a big girl or a funny girl or really what her personality would be like. 

 

He looked at his silly little sister for a while and then turned to me with his eyes all soft-looking and then he quietly said, “I knew, Mom. .. I knew she would be just like this.” 

 

 

When I think of how I worried about how this adoption would affect them, it seems so silly now...  Adopting Emily has brought out a sweet and nurturing side of them that wasn't as evident before.  The age gap is part of it, I guess.  They are old enough at 6 and 8 to see that she (at 22 months) needs people to watch out for her and to help her with things.  They feel protective about her and they know they are big enough to help her.  They want to make her laugh and to make her happy.   But it's not just that they are older than and bigger than she is.  The other part is that - just as has happened to us - their hearts have grown bigger.  They understand a little more and love a little more and care a little more and feel a little more than they did before she was a part of our family ...  They are their sister's keepers.