In the past 24 hours…
- As I took both Claire and Comang for a short stroll, some neighborhood dogs noticed our shy shih tzu and started barking at him. Claire seemed to want to defend him, because she started barking back! (Or at least tried her best to mimic barking sounds.)
- When I “attacked” her with a stuffed animal, she grabbed another nearby stuffed animal and used it to fight back.
- J was getting ready to leave for work and bent down by the front door to tie his shoes. Claire zoomed on over to him in her walker and started to wave “bye” to him without any prompting from either one of us.
- After following me into the bathroom in her walker (I always leave the door open when I’m home alone and need to use the facilities so that Claire doesn’t freak out), she grabbed ahold of the toilet paper and gleefully zipped on out. Of course, by the time I was done peeing and was able to finally catch up to her, toilet paper was everywhere.
Seriously. She is becoming so fun now. The other night I looked down at my growing belly and let out a woeful sigh. “We’re going to have to wait an entire 10 months after this one is born for her to be where Claire is now,” I whined to J. “Can’t we just fast-forward?”
Styling’ it up with daddy’s sunglasses
With all this being said, I am starting to get a wee bit concerned about how Claire will handle BebeDeux. Over the weekend, we visited J’s cousin who had had a baby just two weeks ago. When Claire saw me holding the baby in my arms, she freaked out. Luckily, J was able to calm her down without much of a problem, but I had never seen her lash out in jealousy before.
Everyone tells me that having two girls so close in age will be beneficial to them, that they will be the best of friends. However, my sister and I are less than 2 years apart and we used to fight all the time. Our relationship did not improve until we were both in our 20s.
I can already picture Claire and BebeDeux arguing and bickering. Especially when I am holding Claire and she kicks me in the stomach. Or when I am reading to Claire as she is leaned up against my belly, and BebeDeux kicks up at her older sister, startling and confusing her.
I am now 29 weeks pregnant with BebeDeux. I remember how when I was at this stage with Claire, I couldn’t wait for her to come out. But this time around, despite my ever-increasing physical discomfort, I find myself whispering to my belly, “You stay in there for as loooong as you want, okay?”
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How fun! I love when they get more and more interactive – I’m just starting to be able to have conversations with my nephew (he’s 2.5) and it’s just hilarious!
I can’t WAIT until I can have conversations with her! (And both J and I agree that she’ll probably be a little smartass!)
So I am not an expert by any means.. but.. My niece and Nephew are about a year apart, and they do fight, but at the same time they are great friends… and seeing them together (2.5 and just a few months shy of 4) makes me miss that connection with my own siblings.
I am 8 years older than my Brother, who is in turn 8 years older than my sister. I spent most of my Sisters life, and a good chunk of my brothers not living at home, and becoming an adult.. which strains the “big brother” connection a bit.
Anyway just thoughts.. like I said I am no expert. 🙂
I think it really does depend on the siblings too. From what I’ve seen with my friends and their siblings, it seemed like the ones with greater age differences got along a lot better…but now, so many people are telling me that those who are close in age are closer.
We also don’t all share the same mom. Technically my brother and sister are half-siblings, something my brother loves to point out. Oddly enough I think it bugs my little sister more than it bugs me.
I just have a feeling the had my little brother been even a few years older we would have been better friends. Even if it is hard when kids are younger, I think they grow it is better.
My little brother was an annoyance because he couldn’t surf, and wanted m to teach him, or wanted to follow us when we went mountain biking. It sucks being 12 and messing up your relationship for years because you resented having to be the built in baby sitter… of course by the time my sis came around I wanted to be that person..
Anyway, I hope and pray it works out for the best with your INC baby 🙂
Cute picture of her! She sounds like so much fun. 🙂
I am 19 months apart from my younger sister and though we did fight because the distinction between who’s older/younger was not always clear, we had SO many good memories as kids too and are best friends as adults! We used to play princesses, build treehouses, make forts out of boxes, and do lots of fun things independently without our parents watching our every move. We shared a room growing up and we would always wind down secretly whispering about our day to each other as we fell asleep. It will make it easier too when they get to those school age years. You won’t have to shuttle between schools so much because they’ll almost always be in elementary, middle school, and hs around the same time!
Uh oh gotta jet – my little one got her hands on the trashcan!! o_O
Haha, that’s one thing that my husband and I took as a “pro” when we first discovered I was pregnant with BebeDeux — that they’ll always be in similar stages in education and life! (And also, we won’t have to wait as long to get them out of the house! 😉 )
I know what you mean – I keep telling Baby #2 – STAY IN THERE as long as possible. I’m not ready for you yet!
My brother and I are 5 years apart and we fought a lot. We didn’t get close until we’re out of college. I was definitely jealous of him because he got all the attention from my parents. I remember when I was 6 or 7 years old, he would pull out the books from the bookshelf and I would get yelled at for doing it and asked to put them back, meanwhile he’s laughing his head off. And often throughout our childhood years I would ask for things like a walkman, cellphone, etc. My parents wouldn’t buy any of it but when the time came for my brother, he got what he asked for. Looking back I understand why my parents did what they did.
I feel like most parents adore each developmental stage more and more. I fear I’ll be the opposite – I just can’t get enough of itty bitty babies. That said, I’ll gladly take BabyDeux until she’s 10 months old and return her to you. Deal?
But I think I’m different from most in that I don’t miss the earlier stages…like AT ALL. Even my husband admits he misses the days when she would only sleep on one of us, but I don’t. 🙂 And if you can believe it, I actually look forward to the teenage years! (But then again, I have a passion for working with teens.)
I don’t know how you — and so many others — can be such a fan of the infant stage! Maybe this stems from the fact that I value independence and maturity so much? I love my children to death, but I gladly look forward to the day when I can have adult conversations with them.