Charlie Challenges

I knew that having a baby would be a challenging adjustment for Charlie. Here we are becoming a family of four:

And here is a new view that Charlie sees everyday now:

Before we came home from the hospital, Charlie left on Thanksgiving Day to go to OKC with the Leclercq's. He was supposed to be there for a full week. This was the first time he had been away from us for a trip, other than going to Shreveport with the Leclercq's for a weekend when he was 18 mths old. This was mistake #1. Mistake #2 was not letting him see Collier in our house before sending him to OKC. That weekend he made the comment to Julie, "So, I live with Aunt Jelly now and Collier lives with mommy and daddy?". (Enter lots of tears from me here.) Needless to say, Patrick spent that Sunday on I-35 going to get Charlie to bring him back home. The next week was full of adjusting. Charlie said things like "I'm just so sad." and "I don't like baby Collier." and "Can you put baby Collier down and hold me now?". Not to mention, we had major regression on the potty training front. Luckily, Charlie has not once shown aggression towards Collier. In fact, he really loves his baby brother.
And even tries to feed him like mommy does:
And he likes to be around him:

Now that we are 6 weeks in, Charlie is becoming more himself. The best thing, though, is that he now calls me "mommy" again... for a good 6 mths. before Collier came I was just "mom". And now he says things like "I love you so much, mommy." Melts my heart, I tell ya!