Baby on the Way

So, I am 21 weeks pregnant.   Everything is going well with the pregnancy and it appears that in November we will be adding a new baby to the family.  I am not very good at telling people that I am expecting.  My general approach is just to show up in my maternity wear, mention nothing and make everyone slightly uncomfortable until some brave soul finally asks, "So, um, you're pregnant, right?"  I know this is weird, but I can't seem to find another way to do it. Because of my past history with miscarriages we put off telling people about the baby and now it just seems we waited too long.  We delayed announcing partly because untelling people that you're pregnant sucks, but mostly because I never feel as excited as everyone else expects me to be.  Four months into the pregnancy, I'm still worried about finding a heartbeat while everyone else is wants to talk nursery decor.   But now that we've made it past the 20 week mark, I am feeling more confident.  I'm still getting there on the excited thing, but I'm making progress.    

We did tell Baby M that we'll be bringing home a baby brother for him soon.  His reaction was, "I hope it has duck feet."  He also offered a name suggestion- "Flombu".  We took him to our 20 week ultrasound where we hoped to set his expectations on the feet thing ("Look!  You can see the baby's totally normal human feet!") but he got bored and asked if he could go back out to the waiting room and play with some toys.  Since he doesn't really seem to be getting this whole baby thing, I've been on the look out for some age appropriate books and toys to help him prepare for the upcoming change.

The first book we got was Baby on the Way by Martha & William Sears.  It's a very sweet book which describes pregnancy as feeling like "love is growing inside [you]" and tries to give a children some insight into what's happening to their mother.  Pregnancy symptoms like queasiness, hunger and fatigue are related back to the child's own experiences.  However, with Baby M this approach backfires. When the books states mommy's tummy feels yucky like "when you eat three slices of birthday cake and ice cream" it completely loses Baby M.  How could there be too much cake?  Granted, Baby M has never had 3 pieces of cake in one sitting, but it sure sounds good to him.  And birthdays are fun too.  And I'm going to be 3 on my next birthday.  Can I have a fish superhero party?  Baby M completely loses focus.   I've started just skipping that section altogether.  But I do think Baby M is making progress too.  A friend crocheted Baby M a doll with a removable hat and diaper and he spent an entire afternoon changing the baby's diaper (the doll is awesome, you can check out her etsy store here).  And tonight Baby M walked over, planted a kiss on my belly and said it was for the baby.  Now who couldn't get excited about that?

Library Books

Baby M and I go to the library nearly every week and in the past I have spent a fair amount of time carefully picking out books for him.  I'd wander the children's section while Baby M played with blocks, looking for the perfect mix of books-- a variety of artistic styles, some with simple text and some with rhymes, some about trains and some about children from foreign lands.  If he expressed an interest in turtles I would find a book about a turtle.  But now that Baby M is two and a half and Mr. Independent he insists on choosing his own books to take home.  I am pleased that he is interested in books and reading, but I am not always happy with some of the lessons that the books he chooses impart.  Here are a few ideas found in some of the books Baby M has picked up that I could do without

1. Vegetables are yucky and should be fed to the nearest pet dinosaur
2. There are scary monsters in your closet, under your bed and peeking in your window at night
3. Ice cream is a good reward for just about anything
4. Little brothers are annoying
5. "Shut Up"
6. Girl trucks talk too much and might just be insane, while boy trucks are bent on destruction, or at a minimum, getting really dirty

Now I understand that some kids already think vegetables are yucky or that monsters are hiding in their bedroom, but I would really like to avoid introducing these concepts to Baby M if I can.  Sometimes when reading I'll change the story around, but then worry if I am hurting his literacy skills by not reading the words on the page.  Sometimes a book will mysteriously "get lost".  I still pick out books for Baby M and try to sneak them into his pile, but somehow The Stupids Take Off  always ends up on the top of the stack.

So how about it?  Have you ever been surprised by a message in a children's book?  How do you handle  it when you dislike the books your child chooses?