A joyful rush in the house…
It is as if we have suddenly been taken five years back.
It is like watching an amazing film anew.
I had better tell the story right from the beginning.
When my son Baki was born five years ago, I was experiencing the inexplicable happiness and excitement of being a mother at the same time.
I had dozens of questions in my head such as “Can I care for him?”, “Am I adequate as a mother?”, “Can I protect my baby?” etc. I also realized that I had never felt such a deep love in my life before.
Years went by, and Baki is 5 years old now.
And now Ayşe is with us. Ayşe was so tiny when she was born – you know, an itsy-bitsy baby. She was so little that I was scared to hold her in my arms.
Thank God she is 7 months old now, but to me, she seems as if she hasn’t grown a bit.
Even though I am telling you about the process briefly, it was not as brief and easy at all as it is written.
We had a new process ahead of us where we needed to explain the situation to Baki and prepare him for his sister.
You know, for 5 years, we have been caring only for him. It was important for us that he accepted the new baby and was happy about the news. There have been so many families around me where both parents and the children struggle with a great deal of difficulties because the older children are jealous of their younger siblings. I and my husband concluded that it would be better if we took some measures.
We wanted to tell Baki about the situation before my belly got any bigger. Otherwise, it would be more difficult to explain my physical changes. In order to understand how Baki felt, I and my husband occasionally took turns for a while asking Baki “Would you like to have a brother or sister?” or “Would you like to play with your brother or sister if you had one?”, and we pretended like these were just random questions.
Eventually, he began telling us “I would play with my brother or sister if I had one”. But we were still being careful.
When all the test results showed that the baby was healthy by the end of month 3, I and my husband spent the whole Sunday with our son and told him that he was going to have a sibling.
We were watching him to see if he was going to react in a negative way, but then, we realized that he was happy to have a sibling whom he had begun to see as a playmate.
He bombarded us with questions:
“When will it come?”
“Where is it now?”
“Is it growing in your tummy, and doesn’t it get bored?”
“Is it a boy or a girl?”
“Will it call me brother?”
“Will it stay in my room?”
I told Baki what I learnt from the books I had long been reading in a calm and affectionate way so that he could understand me.
Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to rest a little bit while my boy is at school.
