I’m 36 weeks pregnant and packing to go to another city in our host country where we will soon have our baby boy. Amidst racking my brain about what we will need for the next two months as we live in a South Asian Airbnb, I also have been thinking about how we can prepare our 18-month-old to become a big brother.
All the books about babies and his birth story are on his bookshelf and it’s finally hitting us–we will soon be a family of four!
We gave him a little boy baby doll for Christmas and he hasn’t been super interested other than kissing it from time to time, removing the baby hat, and throwing it down the slide. This week he’s been bringing me Love You Forever, a favorite book of mine that I always read at my grandparents house growing up, and I’ve been showing him how to rock his doll as I sing the song in the book. It’s super sweet when he holds it over his shoulder and sways back and forth.
One of my other favorite things has been when he lifts up my shirt to kiss the baby the last several months and then pulls it down whenever he is over it and ready to move on–haha. Lately, he lifts up his shirt too and we joke about how there isn’t a baby in his belly, only mama’s.
I came across an idea of creating a book to prepare your toddler for mom to go into labor and becoming a big brother. The mom from this particular blog I read had designed a book in Canva, printed it on sticky photo paper, and mounted it on a board book— sturdy and so cute. I looked into a few of these things and they definitely weren’t doable in South Asia.
But, I came up with a simple way to re-create the idea and loved the way it turned out.
I created the pages on Canva, emailed them to a local print shop, and picked them up the other day at the market.
After it was finished, I gave it to Eli and he immediately opened the page about his toys. He ran over to his bookshelf and tried to find all the books pictured on the page, excited that he recognized each book in the photo.
Materials:
- Cardboard or cardstock for front and back
- 2 book rings
- Laminator and sheets
- Photos of your book created on Canvas
- Tape or glue
- scissors
Steps: create book on Canva, print 5 X 7 photos, laminate each photo, hole punch the cardstock or cardboard front and back and hole punch the rest according to those, tape the cover photo and first photo to cardstock, bind with book rings
As you can see, our plans look much different than most. We will be living in a big city we’ve never even visited and we aren’t dropping our son off with grandparents right down the road. I included the word, “might” on page 6 (with the Yak) because we really aren’t sure exactly what the plan will be when baby brother is ready to make his way into the world. Thankfully we should have some time before then and it’s such a timely reminded to trust the Lord with all things.
When our heart starts to wander and worry, may we lift our eyes to Lord—the Maker of heaven & earth (Psalm 121:2). He is where our help is found.