Mothers' Day 3/3

Sunday the 31st, B was born.

(B still stands for Baby, we're still at an impasse on names, which means F is currently right after all - she's being saying it would just be called Baby for months.)

Just to add dramatic weight to that, it was Swedish Mothers' Day. It was also Uncle J's birthday, F's Godmother L's wedding anniversary. Brooke Shields was born on this day, people, it has cosmic significance.

June 1st, we got the news through to F.

We did phone her several times on the Sunday. In Mormor's care, she'd gone out to Lek och Buslandet, a soft play area. We got to hear Aunty M asking her to come to the phone, and we got to hear the screamed response ("NO!") several times, and that was it. However exciting a new sibling is, it isn't a trampoline. There is no comparison.

But she did understand. We've been explaining it to her for ages, and she's interested and excited. If her priorities aren't quite ours, that's okay. She is only two and a half. Even so, she understood about the baby. When I woke her in the middle of the night on Saturday to explain that she had to go to Mormor's house now because the baby was ready to come out, she was confused.

"No, Daddy, babies must grow and grow and grow first," she told me, rather pityingly.

"Well, it's done that already, and now it's ready to come out," I said.

"Pop?" she said, because that's the sound effect we do at the relevant stage in her book. It's a good book, as kids' books go, but the pictured bursting amniotic sac does look like a cheery balloon. It's been hard to know how much F has taken on board, and not entirely reassuring to discover she thinks childbirth and Cheggers make the same noise.

"Yes, pop," I said. V threw me dark glances. "We're going in Mormor's car," I added, because F was still dubious about going anywhere with a man with such a poor grasp of the basics of partuition.

"Let's go!" she said brightly, hopping out of bed. She likes cars.

And then suddenly it was Monday afternoon, and I was waiting with her downstairs from the maternity ward. V was feeding B, and I was trying to prepare F for her first encounter with her new little sister. I'd done this in three stages, which I'd like to record here as a template for all parents:

• Bought her a Kinder Surprise containing a toy car that in turn contained a toy plane, both of which represented a significant choking hazard for a newborn
• Fed her the chocolate egg so she got hyperactive and then pooped herself vigorously
• Dropped one of her shoes on her face while changing her so that she got a fat lip

When Fathers' Day rolls around again, I may go presentless.

"Here's your little sister," we told F, as V came out of the lift.

And she jumped up and down and laughed, and looked at B's tiny pink toes, and wanted to hold her hands and hold her up she could teach her to walk, and told us that babies could only sleep and eat and poop, and everything else she's learnt from her book. All retained, all understood, and all very happy.

V and B should be home before this post airs. I don't doubt F's joy will get patchy in places. Hell, I'm sure V's and mine will - I dimly remember the nappy-ridden early days of this very blog, and I am in no hurry to repeat them.

But we will, and we'll find something shiny and worthwhile in amongst all the crap, as one always does in life, and F will be helping us do it, just as she does every single day.