Ever since she was born, our Princess Charlie has been a "mama's girl." If I am in the same building, I better be with her! I am the one who would put her to bed every night I wasn't working- I work 3 12hr shifts, and on those days Jesse does put her to bed and she is fine with it. However, if I am home, she will not let him put her to bed.
This made bringing Rainbow Evan home pretty stressful for me. I knew from when Charlie was a baby that babies are generally more fussy at night and tend to cluster feed at night. How would I do that plus put Charlie to bed?
*Side note- I tend to take the "Gentle Parenting" approach to motherhood, and cannot stand my babies crying when I know exactly what they want, and it is something as simple as me holding them.
For the first week, I fed Evan, then tried to hurry through bedtime, while hearing Evan crying for me dispite Jesse holding her. We finally talked Charlie into letting daddy do bedtime, and after a few nights she started requesting that daddy go "read bookies" with her (we read books every night at bedtime). She has adjusted great.
Another thing that has become a normal thing since having Evan is that Charlie will do things with only Jesse, leaving Evan and I home by ourselves. He will take her to run to the store, or take the car to the car wash. It hit me a few days ago that Charlie and I had not had alone time since Evan was born. I felt so guilty. She has been fine with it, and has adjusted to having a baby in the house so well. So I decided last night needs to be a "Mommy and Charlie" date.
I knew I wanted to take her to dinner once Jesse got home from work, but I couldn't decide exactly what to do. I finally decided on Bob Evans- she loves the "Piggy Pancakes" and the last time we were there we let her get chocolate milk, and you would have thought we let her go crazy in a toy store!
She was so excited to go somewhere with me- just us two. We sat in a booth next to each other, and she kept leaning on me and hugging me, saying "Just me and you, Mommy!" She had the biggest smile on her face as she said it to. It seriously about made me cry.
When I told her she could drink all of her chocolate milk, she would smile and say, "Thank you, Mommy," in her sweet little voice. Ugh. I wish I could have recorded the whole thing.
It is something so small, but so special. I am also an older sister, like Charlie. I don't ever remember feeling neglected or that my parents had favorites. But I feel so guilty all the time, and think that the girls will feel that we don't love them as much as the other one. This little event between just the two of us is something I can do with each of them periodically. Get time to catch up and relax, just two of us. I can't believe how special she felt. I am so glad I did this, and I know she is too:)
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