Pesach Theme: Baby Moshe and Baby Brothers!

In case you missed our recent announcement, we have a new playmate in our playroom! With gratitude to G-d, we welcomed home a new baby brother into our family on Tuesday, March 27. You can read more about it here. As we moved through our home preschool activities over the last several weeks, I was mindful to include some play-based activities that would help to set the stage for our new addition. My older son went through a variety of phases of understanding what would happen before it happened and has continued to go through a variety of adjustment phases to what has happened now that we are a family of four. For a seemingly very long time when I was pregnant, if I told my toddler there was a baby in mommy's belly, he would smile and say "Nooooo!" in disbelief! (After all, in his mind, how could a baby get into his mommy's belly?!) One day, his response altogether changed and he announced that he wanted a baby sister. I explained that it might be a baby sister or it might be a baby brother (I had a feeling it was the latter although we did not know for sure). By the next week, he walked out of his bedroom one morning sticking his tummy way out and announced that he had a baby brother or sister in his belly!

Playing about taking care of babies helped open the dialogue to what babies are like and bring forth concerns my toddler had and questions. Having his own baby dolls also provides a great alternative for activities he wants to try with our sleeping baby that might not be so safe or ideal for the moment. In related news, his baby dolls are getting lots of walks in the toy stroller and plenty of bottles and pretend food from the kitchen set!

In addition to dramatic play, we also read books, watched videos, sang songs and lullabies together, looked at baby pictures of my toddler as a baby and did plenty of talking and question answering as the topic came up. 

We checked books out of the library. We played with dolls and sang fingerplays about babies. We went on a special Mommy and Me date to the bookstore and bought some books about new babies and big brothers. We watched a lot of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood--particularly the episode about his new baby sister. We talked a lot as we played about the upcoming changes and how my toddler was feeling about it. He had one major concern and that was how nervous crying made him. We made, decorated and laminated a list of things we could do if/when the new baby would cry. The morning before I went into labor, my husband took my toddler on a special day trip to Maryland to get food for Pesach and I had a sudden nesting urge to set up our playroom again! Maybe all that shlepping up and down the stairs would help get a move on things... Well, good thing it was just a day trip and that our playroom was ready to go. That night my water broke and the next morning, we left for the hospital.

Our 10 Plagues Sensory Bottles have been a favorite Pesach material since I first made the set 2 years ago. This year, we purchased this great Kid Craft Passover Set for dramatic play.

My toddler LOVES reading back through this photo book we put together last year before Pesach. We acted out, photographed and told the story of our family preparing for Pesach in the style of his favorite Shabbos book Is It Shabbos Yet? by Ellen Emerman. He loves seeing symbols and traditions of Pesach in the photographs as well looking back on how much he has grown in the last year! I think it also feels extra special right now to have a book all about him now that he is sharing the stage with a baby brother!

Brotherhood has been developing at a rapid pace here. All of the stages of coming to terms with our newest family member that I thought would take a few months to set in began right away. My toddler is very verbal and for this I am glad (even if my heart breaks just a little bit to hear his strong emotions). He loves his baby brother (this I know will also change and fluctuate). He is very anxious and fearful of doctors and medical environments, so visiting the hospital was a mixed bag. He liked to see me; he missed me, but the influx of stethoscope toting medical staff really triggered him. I had an emergency c-section after many hours of pushing and a baby that was a wee bit too big to make his grand exit in that direction. He was nervous about the "boo boo on Mommy's belly." The first time my bigger boy heard my baby boy cry, they both went straight for self soothing in identical finger sucking! The evening after I gave birth, my son and husband were about to attend a friend's 3rd birthday party when my toddler broke down crying in his Tatty's lap for 45 minutes. He sobbed and sobbed and said "baby scary" and "Shimmy sorry" (he'd had a lot of strong emotions that day), and "Tatty still love Shimmy." As much as these words put a palpable lump in my throat, I also know his talking about it is how he works through it and makes room to move forward. I'm so proud of him for how hard he is working as we all settle into our journey toward a new normal. And one of the greatest gifts of all has been our home preschool experience as a whole. It has provided us with routines that can happen at any time of day, a way to connect when we feel a little disconnected, and foremost, his ability to explore and cope through play has really supported him through this transition. We've also been mindful to have opportunities for one on one time with each parent and welcomed the help of a great babysitter to be a neutral friend to play with so there's less of that feeling of being ping-ponged back and forth all day.

There is plenty to celebrate and one of those things is this guy becoming a big brother! We've used language to describe the baby as "his baby" as well as ours, and made a lot of the joy and celebration at home and in our community about him and his new role as big brother.

It is only fitting that the Pesach story begins with Moshe (Moses) as a baby! Playing and learning about babies and adjusting to one in our home is a great supplement to our theme. While our homeschool activities are no where near structured and organized right now with the major change in our home, a holiday coming up and my recovery process, it is nice to be able to reach for a simple craft, grab a book off our shelf, sing a few songs or just play with our themed toys and materials as we prepare for Pesach. The most important thing right now is for our family to go with the flow and move at a pace that works for all four of us. There is plenty of learning going on nonetheless! The simple, yet familiar songs and activities that have guided us through our homeschool year so far are the very ones that bring my toddler the most comfort as he grows to embrace our newest homeschool student in the classroom/playroom.

There's plenty of time right now for self-led independent play. He spends a lot of time enjoying his favorite toys and playing next to his baby brother and sometimes enjoys to play and interact with his baby brother, who right now (thank G-d) spends a good part of the day sleeping!

We are going through the story of Pesach very slowly and bit by bit using some children's books (and Mommy editing to make it age-appropriate). This fun Baby Moshe craft incorporated the fine motor skills of lacing and cutting/gluing and was a fun way to make a seasonal decoration for our house as we prepare for the upcoming holiday!