Her Brother, the Dog
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 11:47 PM
When I had one child, I was fascinated by her. I loved watching her grow and learn, watching her personality develop. Then I had another child and I was excited to have the chance to have the same experience with him.
And it turns out that having two children is more than twice as interesting as having one. Because there’s one unique child, and there’s another unique child, and then there is the relationship between them, which is fascinating in and of itself.
Last month Camilla went to stay with my parents for two nights and I thought, “This will be easy! Caring for just one child is much simpler than caring for two.” It was, in the evenings. Just one bedtime routine to do, one child’s needs to meet at mealtime. Easy.
During the day, though, I found myself unable to be nearly as productive as I’d hoped. Blaise wanted me to play with him all day long. Because his normal playmate was missing.
Then we drove up to my parents’ house to meet Camilla and stay for the weekend, and suddenly Blaise was out of my hair again. He had his sister. He was happy.
My daughter is a solicitous big sister. She comes to tell me whenever her brother gets hurt, or needs something, or is upset. She’s generous to him.
He, on the other hand, is not so generous. Very often they’ll each be playing with one toy and I’ll hear her squeal and find that he has taken her toy and is now hoarding two. He often has a smug look on his face as well. (I never thought a 16-month-old could be smug, but I’d never met this 16-month-old before.)
So, weirdly, I generally have to protect Camilla from Blaise. Otherwise he turns into a 32-inch-tall bully.
But sometimes it does go the other way. Like yesterday, when Camilla brought me a piece of twine and said to me, “Mama, can you tie Blaise up with this string so I can use him as a dog?”
She looked shocked when I said no.
The sibling relationship is full of surprises. I can only imagine the hilarious twists and turns in the road ahead of us, especially as we (hopefully) have more children. It’s going to be fun, I know, and I can’t wait.
(But I’m a little bit scared too.)
Do you have any funny sibling-moment stories to share?
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