New Addition

"It's weird" said Jasmine the other day as I came around to help kids with their morning work.  "When I came to school, I was an only child.  When I go home I'm going to have a brother!"

image: ghgiftshop.org

Indeed, it must have been a weird day for Jasmine--while she was finding lines of symmetry in math and reading The Cat's Meow in book club, the family structure she'd been used to for eight years was changing.

A third grader's role in welcoming a new addition to the family is to let everyone know the exciting news and to adjust to being an older sibling.  The next day, Jasmine was the proudest big sister.  She shared with everyone at morning meeting about her new brother and even texted me a picture of him that night.

As Jasmine knows, though, the mother's role in the birth of a new baby involves a bit more, well--pain.

"It's so exciting that you have a baby brother!" I told her.

"My mom wasn't all that excited" she replied.



Perhaps one or two of the kids will go home and share the news of Jasmine's new brother with their own parents, as Danielle did the year that Kevin's family adopted a baby.

"Kevin's got a new sister!" Danielle told her mom in the car after school the day that Kevin had shared the news.

"Oh yeah?" her mom replied.

"Yeah.  She's imported" explained Danielle.

And as Jasmine gets to find out about all the joys of diaper changing, she will no doubt amass her own arsenal of baby advice, much like the collection of wisdom shared by the second graders last year who  already knew a thing or two about taking care of little siblings.