As mentioned in a prior post, Dad and I had 2 daughters of our own, bringing our family to a total of 6. When we got pregnant with our first and we were ready to tell people, our first priority was to tell Natalie and Zoe.
I loved those girls like they were my own and I wanted them to be excited about having a new baby brother or sister. I didn’t want this to become a moment where the felt unincluded or outside of this family that their Dad and I were starting. I wanted it to be something that they could feel excited about and know they were going to be a huge part of this baby’s life. Being young, I wanted to tell them in a fun and exciting way, so we planned a really fun little treasure hunt. I placed cards all around the main level of our home, leading them from one place to the next, ultimately leading them upstairs to a spare room where we had the crib set up, filled with balloons and a fun note for the girls, letting them know they’d be becoming big sisters. Along with all of that, we had a “gift” for each girl that was from the baby. Each of the girls got a book about being a big sister and a bracelet with charm on it. We truly wanted them to be so excited about a new baby, and it worked. At one point, Zoe even got to come to a Doctor’s appointment with me and heart the heartbeat. It was such an amazing experience and I was so happy to have her be part of that. So many memories of being pregnant and having the kids ask me questions or make comments about their excitement. One specific time was when I was driving them home from lunch and, the entire drive, they were making up scenarios about the new baby being born a Baby Boss. They laughed and giggled as they came up with stories they expected to happen, including Sierra being born holding a brief case.
That excitement followed through after our first baby was born. Natalie really took a liking to being a big sister again and was often found reading to baby Sierra.
A year later, we were excited again to be adding the 4th child to our family, and we found another fun and exciting way to tell the kids about it. They loved, at that time, playing hangman. So we put “NEW BABY IN NOVEMBER” on the board (just blank lines for them to fill out) and we played hangman. It took them a long time to get it, but when they did, there was squeals of excitement and a lot of questions. They just couldn’t wait, again, to have a new baby in the house.
Baby Kaley was born while the girls were staying at Grandma and Grandpas on Dad’s side. When we called them the following morning, we told them she was here and told them her name. We texted a couple photos to Grandma’s phone and the girls had her print them off so they could bring them to school to show everyone.
We were so happy to have our big, wild, girl filled family and couldn’t wait to watch them all grow together.