What you should know about this photo:
1. This scene happens every single day around here.
2. I feel something new every time I look at it: joy, admiration, empathy, gratitude, love.
And today: jealousy.
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Like this? You might like these too. My kids have a knack for teaching me something new about mothering, focusing or injecting playfulness in an ordinary moment.
I never wanted a child. I always wanted children.
Siblings, confidantes, compadres, chums. Tattlers, teachers, accomplices, antagonists. Rivals, secret-keepers, scapegoats and partners-in-crime. Mentors and tormentors.
I wanted wagon pullers, swing pushers, fort builders and sand-castle destroyers. I wanted a full table, too many backpacks, and commas on our Christmas card.
I wanted a firstborn, a middle, a baby. I wanted to marvel at both the reliable and the shattered stereotypes. I wanted shifting alliances and third wheels. Teamwork and the circling of wagons.
For better or worse, I wanted individual players in the ultimate team sport. Sharing the same space, fighting for the same oxygen. Believe it or not, I wanted splash fights, inane arguments, thrown elbows in the hallway, imaginary Do Not Cross or Else! lines.
I wanted Your fault! Get out of my room! Gimme that back! No fair! Because I knew, if thoughtfully tended, these battles could give birth to the flip side: The impromptu hugs. The late night whispers. The collaborations and negotiations. The I’m sorry. That’s OK. Sure you can come inside my hideout.
I never anticipated how immense the task would be, but I even wanted the challenge of finding energy for each unique personality. I wanted to stretch and defy my expectations, again and again and again, about what children (my children) are supposedly like. I wanted to learn to see, truly see, the individual before me. To make every child feel heard though their hearts speak entirely different languages.
There are countless moments–flash floods of drama and aggravation–when I forget how much I longed for this gift of siblinghood. But desires this deep are not easily dismissed.
And it often takes just one sidelong look, one inside joke, one tender gesture, to bring me back to my dreams and watch them come alive right before my eyes.
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If you liked this post, consider giving me a vote in BlogHer’s Voices of the Year. Sibling Revelry is nominated in the Visuals category. My mother-daughter story, On Being Nine, is nominated in the Heart category. Thanks, y’all!
It’s that time of year…time when the rivalries get a little intense, loved ones pick sides, and a lot of time is spent negotiating who wins what when.
But who am I kidding? That’s every season around here. As a mother of three, I’m constantly juggling the barrage of questions and demands thrown at me from the little people in my life. Always at the same time, and usually requiring vastly different parts of my mental energy or physical self.
It can be maddening, I tell ya. But thanks to my new play-off system, I am able to let each child’s issue battle it out with a worthy competitor. And if the demand is deserving of my time, then it just might win the highly coveted spot as Champion of Mom’s Attention.
(Click image to enlarge)
A mother’s vow:
Every time I am beaten down by the squabbling and the tattling and the score-keeping, I will find this photo and tell myself, “See there? She’s pulling, not pushing.”
Turns out that of the many provocative phrases my toddler has learned from his older siblings, “butt fart” is not the most offensive to my ears.
I’d take it any day over this one: “Not fair, Mama! Not fair!”
The thing that this photo does to my heart?
I wish I could bottle it and carry it with me always.
The brother-sister dynamic is so…what’s the word I’m looking for?
Perplexing? Hmm. Fascinating? Maybe. Predictable? Yes! That’s it!
Because every single time this happens…
Something akin to this follows…
As if you haven’t already guessed, we Austinites get a little light-headed and giddy when actual winter weather arrives. It’s all so exciting and rare.
“Look Mom! The thermometer dipped below 70! And it’s FEBRUARY!”
So naturally, last week’s icy and snowy conditions were especially thrilling. The day off from school was great and all, but what really got my kids amped up was a little undertaking Rascal called Freezing Everyone and Their Aunt Rita in Carbonite Just Like in The Star Wars Movie That Mom Always Calls Number 2, But Really is Number 5.
It. Was. Awesome.
When I look back at these photos, I am tempted to put a philosophical spin to the whole endeavor…to compare it to the flood of feelings and memories I have been desperate to freeze in my mind. To wax on about the exit of winter and the onset of spring. To recall the inevitable thawing that follows any intense experience. To consider the beauty and harshness of something so lively and fluid being altered overnight by a force larger than ourselves.
But I’m not going there. It’s too much for me right now. And maybe that’s ok. Instead, I’m going to remember this little project as nothing more than a couple Star Wars fans parading in and out the back door, spilling drops of water along the way, scheming, laughing…all so they could relive the power of an unforgettable scene in a favorite movie.
Come to think of it, maybe they were trying to freeze memories as well.
When you are the big sister The Big Sister, it doesn’t take long to perfect the hands-on-your-cocked-hip move. Not that I can relate or anything.
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