Finding Siblings

Well, lookee here. Daddy is currently acting as Bed since the 'how we're going to wean him off of bodies' conversation scheduled for the weekend hasn't happened yet, and Mo is jealous that I get to sleep with him on me so much, which means I'm free to blog again, a mere day after the last one! Whoa!

Earlier this week, we were at our friends' house. They have a 1-year-old who is in a nanny share with another baby who is three days younger, and that family was there also. Afterward, Mo & I talked about how we want to make sure that Zia has buddies growing up, because it's super cute to watch those two babies now that they're aware of each other, interacting and crawling around. And we think it's important to raise babies in community.


Plus, if they hang out enough, maybe they can become like these twins:

Secret conversations about missing socks!

I've made lots of friends over the last few months with moms with babies right around Zia's age, so we have lots of potential to raise Zia with pseudo siblings. (And, of course, there are the gazillion friends who have had friends within the last year, though it will be a while before Zia catches up to those highly mature babies.) It's pretty funny how unaware of each other the babies have all been so far, though. Yesterday, I was on a hike with my friend Robin (of shared birth story fame), whose daughter was born a day after Zia. For about the first time, they seemed to actually look at each other from time to time, but for the most part they're far more interested in the wall than each other thus far.

Robin and I are planning to do a childcare swap starting in September or so. I'll take Eleanor for half a day a week while she's at work, and in exchange she'll take Zia half a day a week so I can have some baby-free time! Which will give Eleanor and Zia time to develop a fun little friendship like our one-year-old friends.

In the meantime, we're forcing it on them:

Clearly effective, as Eleanor found it to be an opportunity to just munch on Zia's clothes rather than her own. Baby expressions of affection!

It will be so fascinating to watch as they grow up. Who knows -- they may decide that they hate each other! Or, they'll develop a giant posse with all the other babies they get to see regularly.