Brotherly Love

I find myself wondering today just how much of an effect our family dynamic will have on our children as they grow into adulthood.

We have four small children, all two years apart, give or take. Each time we have added a new person to our family, each of the older siblings has taken it completely in stride. We’ve never had the sibling jealousy or any acting out by older kids as the new baby takes on the new role of baby of the house. I’ve heard that there can be issues in families when new babies come, but we’ve never dealt with that in any tangible way ourselves. Our new babies are always loved, the bigger kids shuffle a bit to find a new comfortable spot to fill, and we all just move forward together. I just take for granted, I suppose, that my children will love one another and that they will enjoy each other’s company and get along well.

Now of course they have their bickering moments, even their weeks or months of a certain pair of children not getting along too terribly well, but those times are few and far between and are always short lived.

So in all my wonderings, it is more about how they are TOGETHER that fills my mind. I’ve not really taken the time to look at how they will do APART from one another. Today, I got to see just a glimpse of that side of the multiple sibling coin.

Today, four of our six family members needed to see the dentist. The two big boys needed basic checkups, and my Man and I needed some more extensive examinations done to look at what damage we’d done in our young adult lives of neglectful brushing and flossing. We knew that with all four of us getting checked, it would be a long visit. Girly Pie is still nursing full time and she is also very happy to be along for the ride, so we happily brought her along. But, being blessed to live close to a wonderful family we full trust with out children, we decided that leaving two year old Goose behind was the best plan.

If any of you have two year olds, you may understand this decision. Goose is a delight, full of life and energy and personality in spades. He’s got a wonderful sense of humor for such a wee fellow and he really is a hoot to be around.

All that being said, he’s not one who can be counted on to be anywhere near still or quiet for more than a few minutes. And he's as unpredictable as heck, that one.

So we left Goose with my best friend Mary Grace, figuring he’d play all day with his best bud Oliver and he’d be happy as a clam. We rarely leave our kids with anyone, but Mary Grace was there for Goose’s birth. She’s changed his diapers, wiped his snotty nose, held him, hugged him and loved him for his whole little life. I knew he was in good hands and I thought he’d have a great day.

Apparently, I was wrong.

When I called MG after our appointments were over (about 4 hours after we dropped Goose off at her house) she said in the most PC way possible that he had not been “happy.” By not happy, what she really meant was that he had thrown a complete toddler meltdown fit when he realized I was gone, then continued to spend the majority of the morning clinging ferociously to Oliver’s toys and hording them into corners to avoid anyone taking them away. He apparently demanded snacks in a most un-Benny-approved way (of course at our house he knows to ask nicely, but at a friend’s house he points and yells for the desired banana, then drops to the floor in a temper when asked to say it nicely) and was pretty well a grump for any part of the day that was not punctuated with either Diego or The Wiggles.

Now, Goose is temperamental at times, I’ll admit. He is two years old, and boy, can he be a two year old! That child is thoroughly testing our patience and calm these days, in between wooing us with his utter charm and cuteness. He’s just so full of… I can’t even think of the words to describe it. He’s just FULL. His cup runneth over with just about everything you can put in it. ;o)
But today he really was in a good mood. And normally when he’s around other people, particularly people he likes like MG and crew, he’s just a delight. So in talking about his out of character behavior at her house today, she and I both realized that it was most likely the lack of his big brothers that pushed him over the edge, so to speak.

Goose came into this world with a loving mother and father, and two adoring older brothers. He has never known a world without Punky and Finny. Anywhere that boy goes, he goes with a whole crew of peers right by his side. If he’s sad, Punky knows how to help him. If he’s lonely, Finny is always happy to sit with him and play side by side. If he’s feeling unsure about anything, they give him the confidence to get him through, even when Mommy or Daddy are not within arms reach to do for him what we did for Punky and even Finny when they were smaller. His world is not really just his own. Everything he experiences is colored by having his brothers there with him. So today, when Mommy wasn’t there, he also didn’t have big brothers to look to for reassurance that he was OK. He couldn’t see them playing happily, thus feel confident that everything was indeed fine. It was like a part of his own body was missing today. So even though he was in a place he normally finds very comfortable with people he knows almost as well as his own family, he just wasn’t himself… because as far as he was concerned, not all of himself was there.

So all this to say, I wonder if that will make up a part of who Goose is as an adult. Will he ever really feel happy to be alone? Will he feel incomplete when he and his brothers begin to go out into the world separately as young adult men? Will he lack coping skills that others might develop, simply because he has learned to just look to his brothers to cope with difficult situations?

So I just wonder. Mostly I feel like it’s all good. I feel like the bonds they are making will be wonderful over the years. My children will have hard times in their lives just the same as anyone else. And I think that the fact that they will have each other to lean on in those hard times is a huge gift. There may be a cost, but in the end, I feel it will be well worth any cost they might find.

And, when it comes right down to it, I suppose there is not really much I can do about it anyway. Our family is what it is. And I wouldn’t want to change it even if I could.

I guess next time I need to leave Goose behind for some reason, I just need to leave a big brother (or two) behind, as well. ;o)