Sibling Rivalry

Samuel will have a beautiful, loving sister, Éva. She is so excited about going to China to pick him up that she asks me each morning 'China?'. When asked what she is going to do with Samuel when she meets him she says, 'Hello, hello. Hug, hug'. 'Play' and 'Éva pleure' (Éva cry). That last statement refers to her Gottcha moment with us rather than what she expects to do when we actually get Sam (I think/hope).

While Éva did live with a sibling in her foster home, that sister was at least 6 years older than Éva-Lynn and I doubt that there was much competition for attention as far as Éva was concerned.

I already have some great advice in the comments section of the last post (thanks Bonnie) so, give us some more advice about siblings - Introducing them, helping them share, helping the first child not feel absolutely threatened by the second child, helping the second child integrate into the first child's world, etc.

I have started to try and prepare Éva little by little. Of course my efforts have been complicated by the unpredictable wait to go and get Sam, but here's what we've done so far. We put Samuel's referal pictures up on his door and explained to Éva that Samuel will sleep in that room when he comes to live with us. We also started talking about how Sam will always be around to play with, but stopped there when our LOA didn't come through recently. I plan to start that again and get deeper into it once we have our LOA. One friend suggested that I make a book depicting everyday stuff that we'll be doing with both Éva and Sam - e.g. getting ready in the morning (Mama will help Éva and then Sam or vice versa), etc. I think I'll do that once we get a firmer date.

So, have at it.......