Last Friday I witnessed a teeny tiny event that warmed my mother-heart. We were at the passport office. Incidentally, we were there for 2.5 hours, which seemed like an unreasonably long time considering the fact that we actually had an appointment that took us one week to make, in a convoluted process involving a phone call with a million phone menus that resulted in an inconvenient noon appointment time, cutting into work hours and especially small children's nap times, causing fussiness galore in an environment that allowed no cell phones or computer usage to entertain said small children. But that's another story.
Anyway, Jackson spent the better part of our waiting time running in circles in the waiting area. The tiles on the floor were mostly black with white tiles set into diamond patterns. Some older, also impatient, children started the "don't step on the black tiles or you'll die because it's hot lava" game (which I distinctly remember from my own childhood). Jackson was trying to keep up with them, getting burnt by hot lava many, many times. Kiran couldn't keep up with them at all, so she stood in the middle of the hot lava, watching them circle around her.
At some point, Jackson must of gotten tired of being told that his feet were on fire. He walked over to a wall and sat on the floor, using the wall as a back rest. He stared rather vacantly off to the side. Kiran immediately toddled over and sat exactly three feet from him, gazing around in the opposite direction. With absolutely no acknowledgement of her presence, Jackson pulled away from the wall and narrowed the distance to one foot, leaving a little bit of personal space for both of them. Kiran gave a little glance behind her to where Jackson had relocated, lumbered to her hands and feet and backed her little diaper-clad hiney into his shoulder, guiding it down his torso to a very clumsy sitting position right next to him. He looked at her briefly, then put one arm around her shoulder and proceeded to bite the nails on his other hand.
We have so much drama in our lives sometimes, trying to demonstrate love to both children. One of my big fears is that my kids will not have a loving relationship with each other. But they really seem to enjoy just being near each other. No matter how many times he knocks her off her feet or pushes her or kisses her with his teeth, she still seeks him out. No matter how many times she steals away his limelight for something so simple as walking or steals his toys or gets the ideal daycare dropoff/pickup time, he still seeks her out.
It's a beautiful thing that starts most mornings. When he awakes, he usually plays independently until we go in their room to begin the morning process. Quite invariably, he ends up right next to her crib. And this morning, we were awakened by the sound of her calling him. "Dacksee. Dacksee." He heeded her call. When I asked him why he was sitting next to her crib, he said, "because she called me. She pointed at me and said 'Jackson', so I came over."
It makes me happy. It makes me worry less about their future without Ian and myself. Because if they like just being near each other now, I can hope they'll still look to each other when the inevitable occurs and we leave our responsibilities as their caretakers. They'll have each other.
Clarice
3 comments:
aww, such sweet stories. i can't believe you think about the day when you guys are no longer there for your children. but i guess that's the reality of life.
Yeah, you can tell the little guy really likes his baby sister. I hope the same will be true for Riley and his unborn sister.
As an only child, I feel like it's a handicap... not to have a sibling (or at least a few cousins that live in the same town). I've never felt (and never will get the chance to feel) like there was/is another soul on the whole planet who really "GETS" where I am coming from. Literally and figuratively.
No one that shared my basic "growing up" environment/experience/family.
The only thing I wanted LESS than a baby in the first year of marriage (thereby shortening our "honeymoon phase" and forcing us into "partnering parents"... was to have an ONLY Child. Yuck!
I don't know which factor weighs stronger, in my disdain for "one kid's enough" couples... the sense of PRIDE that an only child expresses - "GIMME MORE ATTENTION", as in "I'm the centre of attention here, not your silly dinner guest. I AM YOUR CHILD! Focus on me!" - Lord knows, I have gone to great lengths to get said attention. But I actually fear it is precisely the opposite. Maybe it's that I know all about Fake Pride and the NEED (not desire) for attention; If someone wasn't near me, reassuring me that I actually exist... I may have simply ceased to! It's a sorrow felt by being the ONLY one of anything. It's not pride, or fun. It's agonizingly lonely.
I would be happy to have a bratty big brother, or whiny little sister, or even to have been a Jan Brady, the infamously "lost in the middle" child... at least, no matter how badly we got along, or how different we turned out, at least we could always check in with each other and establish a firm sense of reality: "Yep... our mom is NUTS!"
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