For almost three years, she was the center of attention. Then she had to share the spotlight with a tiny new baby, who became a cute, pudgy sister and then an entertaining, beautiful toddler...
And then a kid. Another girl. Another sister.
A rival.
Each new stage has been a hard adjustment. But when Little Sister was obviously younger, Big Sis seemed to "get it." She still didn't like sharing her mother (or her Nana), but she tried to help and be relatively gentle and patient with "the baby." The sibling dynamic was challenging, sure. But it was relatively peaceful.
Those days are gone.
Let me back-up a bit and be sure that anyone reading knows this about me: I am an only child. I had some cousins close to my age that were the closest thing I had to siblings. I have only a faint understanding of how annoying a younger sibling can be. I don't know what is a "normal" amount of bickering or wrestling or eye-rolling or shouting or... you get the point.
I do see Little Sister climbing all over her big sister, interrupting her, trying to mother her or bother her or smother her or who knows what. I know it must be hard on her.
And, I am realizing more and more the things Big Sister has to give up or put on hold because of her sister. They are things as simple as sharing a stick of gum or waiting her turn to talk. And they are things as complicated as laying in bed trying to fall asleep and ignore screaming or bouncing or babbling in the bunk below her, or trying to comprehend why Little Sister gets to stay home with Mommy while she has to go to school every day. They are things I never really had to deal with as a kid, and things I may not always notice like I should. They add up, I am sure. It's hard on her.
I'm not trying to sound dramatic. MOST people have siblings- it is not an uncommon tragedy, but rather a fairly boring reality of life. But when you're watching the Wrestlemania on my couch, and sending two surprisingly scrappy little girls to separate rooms over and over, it seems... bigger.
As I struggle with how to fix it (the question I always ask and ultimately realize that I will never answer, because that's pretty much just how parenting goes...) I'm at a bit of a loss. One thing I quickly figured out: Yelling at my kids for yelling at each other is ineffective, and a bit ridiculous. Like Chris Farley in Billy Madison.
I'm just trying to spend a lot of time with both of the girls, separately and together. I'm trying to gently remind them over and over and over again to use their words and to be polite and respectful. I'm praising the sweet things they do for and with each other. And, yes, I am punishing the bad stuff. TV and other rewards have been restricted. There have been too many time-outs to count. Last night I took some advice from a friend with five kiddos and made them sit together in time out, holding hands, after their frustrations with each other ended with punching and kicking.
Some days, I want to scream. I want to find some way to get Big Sister to understand that you can't win an argument with a precocious two-and-a-half-year-old, that "she-really-is-only-doing-what-you-do-because-she-thinks-you're-the-most-amazing-person-in-the-world," and that there is a step in the conflict resolution process between the first "STOP!" and pummeling the crud out of each other. I want her to understand that SHE IS FIVE and her sister is NOT.
But then I remind myself that, despite her 3rd grade+ reading level, her ridiculous vocabulary, and her eye-rolling and other preteen behavior, SHE IS FIVE.
And I try not to be to hard on her.
