Brother, Gus

(the day we brought Liam home)

I realize that I haven't written about Gus' transition into being a big brother, of course he loves him! Yay! I don't know why I ever worried. From the moment we brought Liam home, Gus has been a wonderful and protective big brother. He is very concerned with Liam's happiness and curious about everything that relates to him. If Liam cries, you can guarantee that Gus will either be in the middle of you trying to console him, or he will come and get you to make sure you realize the baby is crying. When our families were visiting Gus was protective of Liam and seemed to worry that not everyone knew what they were doing with the baby, he would hover near the rocking chair and constantly try to lick Liam's head to reassure him that he was near.

(Gus loves "checking" on Liam while he is asleep in his pack & play or taking a bath)

All this being said, we haven't gone through this transition without a few issues. Mainly, Gus looooves Liam's diapers. We keep a small trash can in our laundry room for dirty diapers and Gus goes in there the second the laundry room door is opened to sniff the trash can. On at least two occasions, Gus has successfully gotten diapers out of the trash can and shredded/consumed them before we discovered his naughtiness. Let me tell you, gross. The only success we have with keeping him out of the diapers is to keep him out of the laundry room, which really shouldn't be that hard, but we frequently leave the door open. The other day as I was doing laundry, I walked back into the laundry room to find the top of the trash can stuck around Gus' neck! I really wish I had taken a picture!

Another thing that Gus loves is anything that Liam has spit up on. Gross, I know. We have to make sure not to leave burp rags or bibs lying around because Gus is bound to steal them and lick them to death. He really loves it when Liam spits up on the floor, but honestly, I don't mind him cleaning that up for me. :)

The most recent issue we have had is that Gus doesn't seem to understand that Liam's toys are not his own. We have started trying to introduce a few things to Liam like a rattle, music player, and the stuffed musical glow thingy in the previous post. Anytime we start to try to engage Liam with one of these items Gus goes crazy. He begs for the toy, he sits patiently like a good boy, he waits and waits for us to give it to him...and we don't. I feel awful because I know he must be so confused. For the last two years any toy that we brought into our home was for him, and the baby toys do resemble a lot of his own toys. I sat the stuffed toy on the changing table the other day for Liam to watch while I changed his diaper. I came back into the room later and saw the tail of the toy sticking out from under the bed! We have no idea how to teach Gus that these are Liam's toys, so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions I would love to hear them!

All in all, I think we have had a pretty easy time bringing a baby into our dog's life. While I was pregnant everyone had a story for me of how they knew about someone who had to give their dog away after they had a baby, so I was truly worried. But, I think we have worked really hard to make sure that didn't have to happen. Gus still gets a ton of attention from us and we try to trust him to be near Liam so he hasn't been jealous. Hopefully as Liam is in the floor more and more things continue to go well! We love our babies, both fur and human!