Milo comes to grasp bebé is for real: a pregnancy update

I’m 6 months into the pregnancy, the belly is round, plump and unmistakable by now. Even Milo has no doubt: he taps gently on it at any given chance. If he’s in a good mood, he greets it: “Ciao Bebé!” and blows kisses to his little brother-in-the-making. Most often he pokes it randomly and trys to ride it.

The other day his nanny tickled him on the belly while she was changing his diaper, and he responded severely:

“No! No! Bebé!” , pointing to his tummy!

We laughed with it on the moment, but later I found myself a little disturbed by the misunderstanding he has experienced. Is he really convinced that he has a baby in his belly as well?

We are trying to prepare him gradually: I tell him daily about his little brother in my belly and relay imaginary messages from him about the future games they’ll play together; we have a Barbapapa book which illustrates the arrival of a newborn and all the related paraphernalia (cradles, milk bottles etc.); I look at books about pregnancy and maternity together with him, he loves the pictures of new borns; I also draw a lot with him and have been drawing Milo holding hands with a newborn. He looks at it rather skeptically and the only comments he has been making so far are on the baby’s diaper, asking whether it’s full of pupu!

Next will come the room rearrangement: we need to get Milo a big bed and remove the bed with bars he’s currently sleeping in, to give him the time to adjust to his new status of “big boy” and forget about the cradle, before we start using it for the little brother.

I alternate states of euphoria, as the due date approaches, to pure panic and apprehension on how are we going to handle the day-to-day. I suppose it’s normal and I can blame most of the stress on the hormons. Also, I am now entering that phase when you simply cannot be as active as you were before: grocery shopping is super fatiguing, walking everywhere takes much longer, I can’t lift Milo all the time and bending over is also not an option…in all this, bebé moves and flips over all the time, he feels really tight in there: sometimes I have the feeling he is turning over seeking a more comfortable position, and I can see the silhouette of his cranium or elbow moving across my belly!

I recall when my baby brother was born: I was 4, older than Milo is today, and I took his arrival as my birthday present! At the time sonograms were not mainstream so we did not know the gender of my sibling. Thoughout the pregnancy we had nicknamed it Pippo (which is the Italian version of Disney’s Goofy) and toward the end I would make imaginary phone calls to Pippo in the belly, asking him how was life in there and if he was not tired to be stuck inside!

When I was pregnanat with Milo I reiterated the tradition and called him Pippo until the end. His little brother will remain the “bebé” for three more months!