Day 2: "I want to get in there"

This morning I experienced the first sibling tension. This is a big deal for this only child. And it turns out, for Laura too, who has a brother. It happened quickly. We survived and I'm back in bed blogging with Ivy and Laura after a quick school drop off. Laura was a little sad and reflective and we talked it out for a while when I got back.

We'd all changed Ivy's diaper together, during which Shaw held his ears while she cried. He started looking sad when it was done.

 

I was making Laura's new favorite birth recovery breakfast, extra eggy, extra soaked French toast (I'm experimenting with milk and a little water in the eggs to help the soaking) and bacon. Then, suddenly, I heard her yell for me to come up, just as a general call for crying alarm seemed to sound with Shaw and Ivy simultaneously. I thought for sure Shaw had mistakenly bonked her.

Shaw was a mess on the bed, crying. Laura was holding Ivy, who was crying. Laura was talking in that crazy way parents and toddlers can get into before the parent realizes that talking to a toddler like a sane and stable adult is crazy.

Shaw kept saying "I want in there!" and looking at Ivy nestled in nursing breasts. I took the baby so we could grant him a temporary visit to babyhood. As soon as I had the baby, he cried, "I want poppa!"

Hummm. So what he's saying, if I read this situation right, is "I want to be the baby."


Heavy. Laura and agreed to stop reasoning with him. I picked him up and hugged him and brought him downstairs. He escaped, grabbed two stuffed animals and went back upstairs to give them to momma. I got him and hugged him and said I knew it was hard to be a big brother, and it was hard for me too to have a baby sometimes and lose a part of momma for a bit. But that we'd be a family together soon and it would be great.

At school Shaw was subdued, but stable. I heard a "I want momma" cry when I left, but only one. I think it will work out, but it's going to be tough for me to adjust to this sibling thing too. I already feel myself emotionally siding with Shaw since I can relate to how he must be feeling, based on how I would have felt as an only child with the arrival of sibling.

But, all first children are only children for a while! But we're built for handling siblings (or not), so I have faith that our species experience with situation will guide us through at an instinctual level, with some reading and research to help stay sensitive to it amid our modern world.