The Playtime Catalyst

     "Come on! Let's go play!"

     These words, that I heard from my sons mouth to my daughter when breakfast was over, were sweet music to my ears. There is a three and a half year age gap between these two which is enough time for my sweet boy to remember life before baby girl and also to clearly remember her as a tiny baby. I have been wondering for a few months now when my sweet boy would look at his baby sister, who is now two years old and ready to play with her 'brubah', and realize 'Hey, she is a kid too!' In other words, some one he can actually play with. Most of their playtime interaction, until just recently was brother doing something, baby girl watching him, then annoying him as she tried to imitate it. There was a whole period of time where her MO was to stick legos in her mouth just to see him have a conniption over it.

     It seems that we found our catalyst in the new arrival that graced our lives last month. Our little prince arrived about a month ago and the change was immediate. Some of it may have been that my husband and I seem to divide our children up into categories according to mobility when we are carting them from place to place. For example: I take the one in the infant carrier, you take the two that can walk. But how much of a hand the adults had in this change isn't really important, what is important is that something about seeing a tiny baby seems to have sparked a comparison in my sons brain and he now sees our (not so)baby girl as a playmate instead of some thing to play around.

     He has always been good about helping her do things like wash her hands and get unbuckled but now they also color together, make ridiculous noises at one another at entirely inappropriate times, and the world revolves around making one another laugh. This has been wonderful for her development. Her vocabulary and sentence structure has taken huge leaps, her attention span is a little longer, and she tracks conversations much better. Much of this is probably from needing to learn how to tattle on what her big brother has put her through, he still forgets at times that she is smaller than him and can be a little too rough with her. She seems to have surmised that tears with give you kisses and sympathy but perhaps words will result in vengeance on her persecutor/helper.

     The sweet moments, in between tattling, tears and screams, when I hear the joyful bangs, happy screams and mystery thuds emanating from their room, are music to my ears. Next year my sweet boy will be in kindergarten so these precious days together will become fewer and further between. I know that she will miss her big brother terribly when she is stuck with me and the not nearly as interesting little prince.

     In my mind it all comes down to something I told my children when they were fussing at one another the other day:

     Your siblings will always be there, they will always love you just because you are you, and the bond between brothers and sisters is very special and never goes away. Being part of a family is hard, and being part of a bigger family takes even more cooperation and effort from everyone, you all have to pitch in to make things work. But the bigger the family the more people there are in this world to love you from the first moment you exist.

Getting To Know You

     In elementary school you knew your best friend because she was the one who knew your favorite color and favorite Disney princess. She would spend the night and you would stay up until, I know it's crazy, MIDNIGHT, giggling over the fact that you were still awake.

Honestly, I couldn't name one of
the backstreet boys, then or now.
I am so un-cool.

    In junior high it was the girl who knew which of the backstreet boys you thought was the cutest and that you wanted to be a veterinarian when you grew up. Slumber parties were still exciting but now you painted nails and talked about when your mom had said that you could start wearing make up. MASH was the name of the game and you kept hoping that if you stopped the circle just in time you could get it all, the mansion and the man of your dreams.

Summer daze

     In high school she is the one who knew what band you were into and that you wanted a pair of jncos for your birthday more than anything else in the world. You would never let a boy come between you and you spent everyday of the summer together.

Don't worry mom and dad. I've got
it all planned out. What could go wrong?

 


      In college is was the girl who knew that you were re-thinking your major but didn't know how you were going to tell your parents and that you refused to get married before you graduated and wouldn't even think of having kids until after med school, or at least your masters program. She made the finals week caffeine runs and the post gym class ER visits by your side and told you to get a grip when you moaned that you were sure that you were going to die unmarried and alone.

You tell me now you don't
like the name Conrad?!!

     Post-college it was the girl, soon to be your bridesmaid, who knew that your teaching career wasn't quite all you had dreamed it would be, that you still really loved it deep down inside somewhere, and what names you had picked out for your future (very future) children. You would call each other after a hard day at work and, if you were feeling crazy, head out to dinner and a movie, even on a work night. You would spend your time swapping work related horror stories and dreaming about the houses that you were going to buy someday.

     But now, when so many of my best friends have become moms the things we know about one another are so far from where we started that it is a bit baffling to think of the scope of it.
What do I know about my best friends that is so vastly changed? Here is a short list of things I know now that I wasn't aware existed to know about somebody five to ten years ago:

Do you see that one child that
gave everyone the baby fever?
That's mine.
Kid count- 1

    Did they deliver naturally, at home, or in a hospital with an epidural and/or a c-section? Do they spank, do time out, co-sleep, attachment parent, or 'cry it out'? Do they do cloth or disposable diapers, and where do they fall on the buying organically/humane spectrum. And when we all get together we discuss who is sleeping through the night, who is not, and the latest attempts at potty training as well as exchanging our worst diaper/vomit stories, each one more terrible than the last.

We make mom-ing look good!
Kid count- 5 (baby fever jump)

     And do not for one moment think that these are not subjects that are as emotionally charged as the best Disney princess issue or that the winner of the "I got less sleep than you for longer" contest has any fewer bragging rights than the owner of those new jncos. The subjects may change but, in truth, the people don't, which is why, after all these years, you still keep them around. And, seriously, every mom needs someone to tell their gross out stories to, preferable over a meal, and only in part to make all the husbands cringe and vacate the room.

They continue to multiply!
Kid count- 8 (1 not pictured)
Current count- 12 and 1 on deck

     Besides, you get extra points for the number of husbands that gag as they run.

Triple the Children, Triple the Gear?

     I made a registry for this baby. It sounds greedy and like I am expecting something to even say it. It was not because I expect a shower, or for anyone to ever even look at it. It was purely an exercise designed to organize my thoughts on what we really "need" (this is a strong word for our position on baby things) and to remind myself what we already have from our previous children.
     So here is the thing about the baby things on my "need" list. I have had a child in the last two years so I should have all the normal things you use day to day for a baby. Right? But there are two catches to that way of thinking as I see it:
          1. I had a girl, and while I kept it neutral some things like the clothes, pacifiers, and blankets really don't translate well if they survive at all. To put it bluntly, I don't want my baby boy in a pink a blanket, wearing a purple onsie, sucking on a pink pacifier, and under a pink floral nursing cover. I know it is shocking and sometimes it makes me feel so wasteful and spoiled, but its true. More practically, as far as her sheets and stuff that were neutral go, she is still using it!
          2. "Ah, but you did have a boy before that girl!" you might say, and that would be true, but that was SIX YEARS ago. It freaks me out to realize this, my sweet boy is about to be six years old. His crib, car seat, diaper bags, monitor and bedding, to name a few things off the top of my head, are all either worn to pieces, expired or recalled. And since he was born we have moved twice, one of those times to a different town entirely, so I only kept what I was sure I would use later.
     So I conclude that I "need" some baby stuff. As I see it there are three main categories for the things on the registry. Will need soon, need, and would be really nice.
     The will need soon things straddle the line between need and "need" because they will eventually graduate from one to the other as the child gets older. For instance, I can easily get an infant carrier that will last about the first year but baby girl will not be out of her car seat by then and that leaves us one short. Now that is not a pressing concern at this moment due to the deadline for dealing with that being about a year away. So it is a "Will need soon".
     Some of the things we must get are non-negotiable for example the fact that our car will not even hold three children safely is a big deal. That is something that we realized early on and have a plan for, not to mention you can't put cars on a registry. Also in this category, clothing. Leaving your child naked for all occasions is frowned upon, even if they are a summer baby, and I have no boy or girl clothing in sizes smaller than 12 months. I am pretty sure that he won't be that big when he is born, though I do have nightmares like that. These are really the true "needs".
     Other things, and in reality, the majority, are sheer luxury like a double stroller, or crib sheets, or a new diaper bag. I could do more laundry and not really need extra sheets and blankets beyond what we already have. I don't have to be able to strap my two year old down, load the immeasurable amounts of things we carry with us everywhere, and not destroy what is left of my spine when we go places, but it would sure take a lot of the stress off to have that option. We don't have to have a monitor in the older children's room, but it sure makes it easier to figure out if someone in there is truly dying, puking, or jumping on the others head in the middle of the night to be able to check that from our room.  I don't really need a new large, handy, put all the kids items in one place, not too girly for my husband to carry diaper bag but getting three wiggling, shoe removing after you put them on, whining, maybe even crying, escaping children in and out of the house, or any other place, would be so much simpler if I had one.
     So many wants, for that is what they really are when I put the correct label on them. And as I look over my list I am struck by how amazingly blessed we are to already have so much, to truly need so little, and to have access to things that are here purely to make life simpler or more convenient. And in those moments I feel so content and humbled by what God has given us.
     Those are beautiful, happy, golden moments in the sunshine when my children are either playing quietly or sleeping peacefully. I set aside my list, my worries, my fears and face the future at peace with my ability to make do with the plethora of things I already have.
     But then, as someone snatches a toy, falls in the mud, or leaps from the arm of the sofa, or, perhaps, as I step on a lego, carry a screaming child out of a store, or haul our belongings into the house from the car, I realize that I am adding a child to our lives. This is not a different song, same tune, repeat as necessary situation. I will have THREE children and one of them will be a no sleep, can't nap because of the older kids, pooping, spitting up, double the laundry alone, can't put me down, newborn...
Maybe some luxuries are a good idea.

Second Child-ed

     I said these words the other day and as they came out of my mouth I realized I had arrived some where new...

His "hugs" might get her
before the legos do.

     For background here is the whole conversation:
     My sweet boy about his not yet two year old sister: "Mom she's putting my legos in her mouth!"
     Me: "Okay, call me if she chokes on them."
     I didn't even pause to think. I didn't hesitate for a moment, consider setting down the spoon I was stirring with and going to intervene. I didn't even flinch as I said it. I totally second child-ed it.

     To be honest, before Christmas, which is when the number of non-duplo sized legos in my house increased by a factor of 10, this would have incited panic in me. 'She is going to choke and die' I would say to myself and rush to her "aid", but earlier that day I had watched that little girl repeatedly put legos in her mouth and spit them out in order to annoy her overwrought big brother. So by the time I am standing at the stove trying to get dinner made so that I can put them all to bed my panic button was broken...

     ...at least on that subject.

A Christmas addition to our
"real" size lego collection

     You probably know what I mean by "second child-ed it", it's when you put the pacifier in your mouth to "sanitize" it, it's when you don't make everyone who comes in contact with your newborn douse themselves in hand-sanitizer because what's the point when your three year old lets them suck his thumb, it's when you are relieved to see that the food that they are eating off the floor is at least from that day, it's when they eat dirt and you don't flinch, just wipe the evidence off their face before grandma comes over, it's when they crash into something and it looks and sounds like it should hurt but since no one is crying you don't even pause the conversation you are having.

Hey, she's getting food, right?

     You run at the tears of the first child, sweep them into your arms, and search all over for all possible "boo-boos" all the while asking if they are hurt, but the second child you call to you, give them a kiss, a once over for blood, and send them on their way.

Yes, that is a tomato my
second child is eating like an
apple. Saves on dishes.

   


     It is a gradual change and every parent has their hang up from the first that they just can't relax on, some more than others, and that is just fine. But one day, when you least expect it, you look up and realize that you have more broken panic buttons than live ones.

     This is how you know your ready for kid number three.