I Don’t Think So!

There has been anticipation in our house since news of a baby possibly coming to stay in October. Little Lady insists it has to be a girl and Little Man says he will help look after it. Not everyone is excited though. Gorgeous has spent about two weeks giving me cross lectures on hearing the news:

You can’t look after four children! (cheek!)
Babies are smelly; it will fill the whole house with poo!
Daddy will be angry, it will eat all of his food!
Where will it sleep?
It won’t be my friend, babies aren’t anyone’s friend.
It can’t play with me, babies just cry all the time, they don’t know how to play
Babies are too stinky and do poo in their nappy and do farts!
Babies are so rubbish.

I got a complaint from his teacher that he was misbehaving in school. He had been soaking children waiting at the water fountain and refusing to listen in class. I explained to his teacher that there had been a lack of routine at home recently and that we were working to set this right.

I spoke to Gorgeous, who was super-embarrassed (and had been trying to talk me out of talking to his teacher). He agreed to try his best to listen and be kind. I agreed that we wouldn’t bring home a baby if he didn’t want one…

…then the emotional blackmail and guilt-tripping began. I explained that so and so were going to have a baby, they were going to love it and play with it. Lots of people would come to visit them. We wouldn’t be having one. Never mind. A few days of this and he softened up:

Gorgeous: “okay mum, you can have one then”
Me: “No, it’s too late, you have to really want one”
Gorgeous: “I do, I do want one”
Me: “Well it’s not up to me, you have to ask Allah”
Gorgeous: “Please Allah can we get a baby”
Me: “You have to mean it”
Gorgeous: “I do mean it, please Allah can we really, really, get one”
Me: “We’ll just have to wait and see if we get lucky enough” ;)

I realised he had changed his mind when we packed up his baby books to get rid of them and gave him some of Little Lady’s Oxford Reading Tree books. He previously hadn’t let anyone touch them. Not only did he hand then over, he agreed to keep a small one for the baby and hid it in a toy box for when the baby comes.