Living with an Angel

One of my biggest concerns from the beginning, was telling Amara and Callen about the baby probably not coming home to live with us. More so Amara as her understanding and excitement about a baby was much more so then Callen. I read on a grief board online how to help young children understand the loss of a baby and was recommended this book.
We Were Gonna Have a Baby But We Had An Angel Instead

Now, we have never talked about angels before. I had never brought up the term with Amara before. We had only talked about how Eliza was going to be in heaven and that she was with us everywhere. At 4 1/2, Amara is still trying to figure this out and that is a very very difficult concept to understand. Her being everywhere, her being in heaven.
This book has helped us though, the book is narrated through a young boy. He says, "My mommy had a baby in her tummy. I was really excited about that." He talks about the things he was excited to do with the baby. How he loved to listen to the baby inside his mommys belly and talk to the baby.
He then says, "But something happened, the Baby died. Our baby is not going to live with us."
Then he proceeds to talk about what happens after. Such as the following page.

The point is, this book is very simple to understand and very real. It isn't sugar coated, it tells it how it is which young kids need in order to understand. On each page after the baby died, there is a little angel baby that Amara likes to point out. We just say "yes, the baby is an angel now, and you can't see him/her but the baby is still there." I'm not sure if its the visualization of the angel in this book, but now she talks about how Eliza is here with us. She'll say when we're putting her to bed, that our angel is sitting on her bed next to her. Or that her angel Eliza came to school with her.

She is even blaming the mess in her room on Eliza. Yes, her angel baby sister came into her room and played with all of her toys and took the clothes out of the dresser.

It makes me smile to hear her talk of her. She is real, she is a part of this family. She is a part of our story. She is our baby.