I don't know how it is with only children and their need for attention from their mom and dad, but I know that anyone with siblings has felt, at some point in time, the need to compete with their sibling(s) for their parents attention. I'm realizing now that this inherit wiring for competitiveness starts pretty early on- before anyone starts getting better grades or starts excelling in sports or shows talent in reading or math or music or art or whatever. Your sibling can be your best friend/arch enemy/arch nemesis/biggest fan/biggest competition/most trusted confidant/biggest pain in your ass, all at the same time.
My brother and I are only 11 months apart. This means that I was born in January of 1980, Chris was born in December of 1980 and my parents are fucking crazy.
Chris and I are best friends. We're as close as you can be without being actual twins. I think that this is a true real thing- us being as close to being twins without being actual twins. I mean hell. Our mother's uterus hadn't even fully healed and gone back to normal after having me when she got pregnant with my brother. He literally picked up where I left off on like, the exact day that she could get pregnant again. I asked her what she and dad were thinking when they did that. Um, yeah. The answer? THEY WEREN'T THINKING!
Chris told me not too long ago that we are "Irish twins." I have no idea what being Irish has to do with anything, but it made us laugh trying to figure out all of the inappropriate explanations for it.
One of us can recite the most random line from the most random movie and the other one will know exactly what movie it was, who said it and at least three different movies the actor or actress has been in. We have the same hands and feet, in his and her sizes. We hang out at least once a week, talk on the phone almost every day and can spend hours on end discussing our hopes, dreams, aspirations and particularly- our parents and all of their endearingly neurotic and unique quirks (that we love and love to hate so much).
Chris and I were never really competitive with one another- but I know that there were elements of it there over the years (particularly the teenage years). We were more like allies, 90% of the time. When we fought, there was bloodshed. But after a few hours, one of us would apologize- usually slipping a note under the other one's door as sort of a white flag. We knew that the number one rule was that we had to be on the same side at the end of it all.
I look at the incredibly special bond and relationship that I have with my brother and I only hope my son and daughter will be so close someday. I would love nothing more than for them to be able to sit around and talk about all of the things that Taylor and I are doing wrong right now, could have done better and do annoyingly but in a way that they appreciate because they love us so much.
Chris is the most involved uncle to his niece and nephew that I've ever seen in a guy and it means the world to me. He has to hang out with them at least once or twice a week or he goes into withdrawals. Seeing how excited Jude gets, chanting "Uncle C! Uncle C!" when Chris is at the door is one of the most precious memories I think I will ever have. I'm grateful that my kids will grow up witnessing the friendship that their mother has with their uncle. I believe it will strengthen their own friendship with each other.
Being so close in age- the Irish Twin thing- my mom told me that I never really had the chance to be old enough to understand the need to compete for her attention with my newborn brother. I mean, I celebrated my first birthday only two weeks after he was born. How does a baby regress into acting more like a baby? Lucky for me, I got to skip that part.
So, as Baby Sumo grows and develops more every day, Jude has started regressing in more obvious and attention seeking ways every day. Everything the baby does, he wants to do too. If the baby is on her back, kicking and punching her arms under the baby gym, Jude wants to lay down and punch and kick next to her. If it's tummy time on the tummy time mat, Jude has to lay down next to her and do tummy time too. He's not really interested in taking care of the baby, like a lot of little girls who have become big sisters tend to like to do. Mothers with first born girls are fortunate here. His interest in feeding her is more about a game of getting the bottle OUT of her mouth than in it. But we mothers with first born sons are fortunate in other ways. I see the protective older brother in Jude already hatching and it's really fun to watch. He sometimes gets upset when people he's not familiar with holds the baby. I like to think of this as his protective instinct, and when it shines through, I can see that all of his harassing her throughout the day is just a cover up for the fact that he's already very fond of her.
Although he's regressing, I don't believe that he wants to be the baby (because babies don't get to play with cars or have "guy time" with Dad). He only wants that extra attention long enough to get a big reaction out of us, then he's on his way again, wreaking havoc on the cats and the rest of the house.
I can't get enough of it- he makes me laugh like I haven't laughed in a really long time. Not only that, but throughout moments during the day, he wants me to put the baby down and pick him up, cradle him like a baby and rock him. As squirmy and on-the-go as he is as a 2 year-old boy, I eat up every second he lets me baby him these days, because those days are very quickly fading away.
After their naps (now synced! Yay to the gazillionth degree!), the two of them hang out in Baby Sumo's crib. Jude gathers a few Hot Wheels, drags his little step stool over to Viv's crib and climbs inside. He likes to race his cars on the rails. Sometimes he kicks the baby out and likes a few minutes in there alone to play and talk to himself.
Got the Bumbo chair out for Viv to start sitting in, since she's so large now that she can already fit into it at 2 and a half months old.
Of course Jude needed to kick the baby out and sit in it to watch his show.
Dusted off the old jumpy thing for Baby Sumo. She was in it for about 2 minutes before big brother got all antsy and needed to give it a whirl. I stuffed him into it and he did his best to bounce, with his long gangly legs dragging on the floor. When he wanted out shortly after, he tried to get out himself and got stuck. Then he freaked out and it was really funny to watch- his gigantic body in that thing making the music and squeaks and blurps and boings go off while he struggled and squealed trying to free himself.
Never showed interest in the binky a day in his life. That is until Baby Sumo started taking to one. So now Jude has his own, in my attempts to get him to stop yanking hers out of her mouth. Here he is with his binky on the baby play gym, watching XGames skateboarding with Dad and Viv.
Having to do a little re-potty training, since Jude has taken to dribbling in his undies. Not all out pee'ing, thank GOD, but still. He only does this at home with us. At school he is fine. Go figure. Best story yet? My brother (Fun Uncle C) took him to Target last weekend to get a toy car for good behavior- first time Chris has taken him OUT out by himself. What does Jude do? He takes a huge dump his pants in the middle of the toy section. Hearing the play by play of this event after coming home from a late night out with my best friend had me in tears laughing.
So here is our new strategy for the re-potty training. Every time he goes to the potty he gets a cars sticker. Not doing the Hot Wheels this time. He knows what to do now. When he fills this here chart up, he gets a prize.
Here's Baby Sumo- getting bigger every day. She looks so much like me as a baby that it's uncanny. Her personality is really coming through now. She's much more laid back than Jude was as a baby. I think it's because she has to exist in survival mode around him. She lets him know when she's pissed though. She scares the Bejesus out of him from time to time- sending him running into another room with his hands over his ears. I see this scenario happening a lot in the coming years.
She's my little Asian dumpling and I love her so!
Got a whole good slew of photos of what's going on in the images below. Today was really the first day Jude showed any interest in holding his baby sister, and I think he was mostly so agreeable because half of his attention was turned to his favorite show, Little Einsteins.
Don't get me wrong- he loves to talk to her and give her kisses and be near her and stuff- but, like most guys, he is a little freaked out by the thought of holding a newborn. My father in-law told me to show these to them someday when they are older and at one another's throats, to remind them of how much they love each other.
FUTURE BFFs
