Sisters

I had low expectations for Josie meeting Audrey. She's only (almost) 17 months old. Come on, how much can she really understand? We'd been prepping her as much as we could, talking about the "baby", pointing to my belly, practicing saying her name, but generally she seemed to ignore us as much as possible and showed very little signs that she understood. Sure, she liked patting my belly and other babies, but none of that really meant she understood.

She'd been staying with her grandma and grandpa while we were at the hospital, so they worked hard on getting her to say "Audrey". Also, her grandpa's tradition is to buy a small stuffed animal horse and bring it with to the hospital when he meets the baby. Of course, the horse had been within Jo's view at their house, so they'd been working on explaining how that horse was for her sister, Audrey. 

It turned out that Grandma and Josie were the first people to arrive to the hospital, so Jo ended up being the first one besides hubby and I to see her. How cool is that? She came running into the room saying "Baby? Baby! Baby? Baby." She said it with a question-like tone, excitement, a factual tone, and repeat over and over. Hubby picked her up and she looked really close for maybe two minutes before moving on. I couldn't have asked for more. 

Once Grandpa caught up and came in the room, the next big focus for Josie was getting that horse she'd been wanting to hold for so long. Grandpa gave it to her and told her to bring it to the baby. She listened and "shared" it with her, but mostly she was just so excited to hold it. She spent most of the rest of her time there sharing it with everyone and passing it around. It was pretty sweet. She still calls the horse "Audrey horse". I don't know if she understands that Audrey's name is just Audrey and not "Audrey horse".

She was pretty happy to have a little one-on-one with us too. Glad she missed us a little bit at least!

All of her life, Josie has been the main event with everyone around. Being the first grand kid on both sides, she knows how to get laughs and generally gets a ridiculous amount of attention. With the addition of her cousin four months ago, she's learned to share it and how to interact with a baby, so we were blessed to have that part learned. She didn't seem jealous at all and was happy to clown around with those interested around her. Generally, after that initial interest, she was not interested in anything Audrey related. I'd take that over jealousy any day.



There was one point in the day that she wanted to hold the baby. We got pictures and I'm so glad we did, because it was priceless. She was all about it, got a good look, and was done. She even pushed her away like "Okay, let's play with the next toy!" Too funny.

Initial thought  - "Yeah, holding this baby is the most fun!"

And we're done. 

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