The helpful big brother

Tristan has a Curious George doll that we simply call "Monkey." Monkey gets to go places and do things that Tristan is to big for. For example, to keep Tristan from climbing into the baby swing, Monkey gets to swing instead. This is the same for the cradle, the baby bathtub and anything else that he is eyeing that we don't want him getting in to. One day Tristan wanted to carry Monkey around all day in the bjorn and I thought it was super cute. The cradle that I mentioned above is an antique cradle that James' Oma used when James' Mom Ann and his Uncle Karl were babies. Jim, James' Dad, refinished it for us right before Tristan was born and it is just gorgeous. It's so neat to be able to keep something like this in the family for use with several generations. Genevieve has now enjoyed sleeping in the cradle too!

Tristan is very good with Genevieve and loves to hold her, kiss her, give her hugs, etc. and we are working on "gentle hands." Tristan is such a good big brother that he also tries to give Genevieve some of his lunch, dinner, snack, or whatever he's eating at the time. Usually I catch it before anything goes into her mouth but on one particular day he was way too quick for me - all day long! I went to go wash my hands and came back to him giving her some goldfish crackers. Later that same day I left the kids in our bedroom to change Tristan’s sheets. Tristan was looking at books and Genevieve was swinging, so I figured I had at least 2 minutes to work with. I returned to Tristan brushing Genevieve’s “teeth” with his toothbrush! After that he tried to brush her hair which turned out to be more like him bonking her on the head with a hair brush and led to crying by both kids. He’s so sweet with such good intentions. We just need to help him be patient for Genevieve to get old enough to do all of these things. By that time though, he probably won't be so interested in being so helpful...we'll see.

I included some pictures of Genevieve on her boppy during tummy time. She's getting so strong!