Chain Gang

It's nearly a daily occurrence at the Swanny house. "Mommy, is your baby going to be coming out today?" Being 3 and only really having a good time concept of "now", it's hard for her to grasp the whole 9 months thing. In fact, Peanut was certain after she moved into her Big Girl Room that the next day Swanny Jr. would be here. (**FYI: name change from Baby Langston to Swanny Jr -- no specific reason, just felt it.)

Despite the stress that we can tell turning 3, moving into a new bedroom, beginning a new classroom at daycare and the anticipation of Swanny Jr. coming has placed upon our Peanut, she's really been quite cute about the new responsibilities coming our way. She is getting excited about all that she can teach him from how to talk, sing and dance to how to brush teeth and use polite manners (okay, so maybe that one is imposed by mom).

In one of my weekly therapy sessions, also known as Monday-morning-catch-up with the Mrs., it was suggested that I make a visual support for Peanut to help her understand the concept of how long it will be before our new little bundle arrives. I asked Peanut this weekend if we could make a paper chain to count down the weeks until the baby gets here to which she replied, "Can we use green and purple, my favorite colors?" So last night, we did just that.

With pre-cut paper strips, Peanut demonstrated that she could use a glue stick like a pro.

She quickly learned how to loop the chains and alternate the colors.

And the final result: a chain taller than Peanut complete with 18 links--one to be removed each week until Swanny Jr. makes his appearance. Today we put stickers on the calendar on her wall: we'll remove a link every time we reach a sticker (Sunday). She even summarized for Swanny tonight what the chain is for: "We take off a loop and when they're all gone that means I'll be a big sister!" I just hope that a week after he arrives and she isn't asking for the chain back so her brother goes away....