Sibling Revelry

 I am dreading Tuesday morning, when Sophia and I will have to put my sister, Jennifer and her son, Kevin, back on a plane to Florida. 

It had been two years since we had seen them.  Before they arrived Sophia confessed, “I don’t remember what Aunt Jenny looks like.”  By the way she burrowed into my leg as they approached us in the airport, I could tell they were essentially strangers to her. 

How did we let so much time go by?  We had tried to visit in the past, but we had such different lives, such different schedules it would have required a lot of bending that neither one of us was terribly willing to do.

Jennifer was the first to bend when she suggested coming here instead.  It was a step towards me, and am a firm believer that when someone takes a step towards you, you move forward to meet her halfway. 

We both pulled our kids out of school.  We both took time off from work.  We both invested financially and emotionally in coming together again.

After greeting me, Jennifer bent down to say hello to Sophie, who refused to face her. 

“She has to warm up and get to know me,” Jennifer acknowledged, pulling back, not disappointed. 

But it took Sophie no time to warm up to Kevin.  Within seconds she was chasing him around baggage claim.  The two of them shrieking. 

Come Tuesday, I will be sad.  But, Sophia will be heartbroken.

In no time, Jennifer and Kevin became integrated into our lives.  We found a rhythm—or maybe it was a rediscovered rhythm—something revived from our childhood.  Waking together, dining together, playing together.  Oh, it hasn’t been without its bumps—the same bumps that have always been there, but even the bumps are terribly familiar. 

Sophia and Kevin found a rhythm too, not unlike ours.  He has extracted giggles  from so deep inside her belly, that listening, I am aware that she is experiencing a new dimension of joy. 

They have developed private jokes.  The words “guacamole” and “room service” send them into hysterics.  He has played endless games of tic-tac-toe with her on his DS, though he’d much rather be playing skeeball.  And when he has beckoned for her to come sit next to him, the child who will touch no one climbs right into his lap, puts her arms about his neck, and hangs on his every word.

He is the big brother she will never have. 

He has taken up this mantle.  As an only child, Kevin knows what it is like to be alone, siblingless, living in the world of adults.  There is a tacit agreement:  you be mine and I will be yours. 

I am aware of my own sibling privilege—the taking for granted I did.  I do.  Paying little attention to my sister because she was there to pay little attention to.  Fighting with her because I experienced her as a rival, not an ally.  Letting years go before we saw each other again because she is, has been, will always be there. 

Through Sophia and Kevin, I see us more clearly.  Kevin’s generosity with Sophia—so much younger, hardly a peer—makes me wonder whether I had been too stingy with my own affections. 

We were at our best when we were at play:  writing songs (e.g., “I feel so sad because hay is for horses, not for children.”) and performing disco dances to them; pretending to be two ladies, Joonyurn and Joanyurn who lived in a hotel on the 44^th floor (rooms 4444 and 4443—four was my favorite number); celebrating Barbie’s birthday on a daily basis, wrapping unwanted and broken toys to give back and forth to each other. 

Now, we are still at best when we are at play: crawling into an earthquake tunnel together at the Franklin Institute; teasing each other mercilessly as we vie for the worst score while bowling with the kids; singing pop songs to Sophie as she raises the roof. 

It can be easy to forget this, locking horns over our differences.  Judging or being judged.  Feeling hurt.  Becoming indignant. 

I have Kevin and Sophia to thank for reminding me of the gifts of having a sibling. 

Snow Day

When we woke up, it was snowing. Not a driving, windswept blizzard, nor a paltry dry dusting, but lazy, heavy flakes that seemed to gather girth as they fell from the sky and covered the ground. Perfect packing snow. On this morning, with no where to rush to, no sense of imperative on my part, it was easy to cram Sophia into last years snowpants, next year’s snowboots, a hat and even mittens. I can’t explain why it can feel oppressive to dress a child to go out into the snow. It’s like making preparations to go exercise—always more onerous in one’s imagination than in reality. Or maybe it’s the having to do everything in double…as it is with all activities of daily living—brush her teeth, brush my teeth, give her a bath, take a shower, bundle her up, bundle me up.

It had been a full year since Sophia had played in the snow and already time has buried the memories of building a snowman in miniature at Grandpa Ben’s house or flying down the hill behind Grandma Judi’s house. She stepped outside and tilted her head towards the sky, opening her mouth wide she exclaimed, “I’m eating the snow!” She quickly moved from flakes to handfuls, her mouth glutted with white chunks turning transparent as they melted in her mouth. A lover of all things cold—ice cubes, popsicles, frozen fruit, ice cream, she was eating her way through our yard. I decided to let her. How many pounds of dirt is it that we eat each year? Let her consume it all in one sitting, if this is how she wants to take in her first remember-able snowfall.

I packed a fistful of snow together and rolled it around the yard. The snow came up in sheets, as if I was rolling up a rug. I had to keep turning the growing mound to keep it from looking like a jelly roll, bits of leaves and grass dividing each spiraled layer. “Look!” I said to Sophie, “I’m making a snowman!” And it was the first snowman I could remember making since I had left home for adulthood. Sophia glanced up from her frozen feast with brief interest. “Come on,” I begged, “help me!” The snow was so heavy and the ball so large that she could only push it a few inches. “Too hard!” she told me. I felt the micro-tears forming in my biceps as I took over, erasing the yard of snow.

A five-year-old neighbor, Travis, came over to join us carrying a carrot and box of raisins in one hand, and an umbrella in the other. “It’s my force field,” he said, by way of explanation. He, too, spent a few minutes of his time helping me roll the second snowball across the yard before abandoning the task in favor of stockpiling snowballs. As I worked on my snowman and Sophie sat in the driveway now (as I had cleared much of the yard) moving on to dessert, Travis updated me on his progress, “I have four!” “Now I have seven!” Growing worried, I took a break to generate my own small pile of artillery. Travis shot me a taunting smile, and I held up a snowball threatening, “Throw it!” he ordered me, crouched down on the ground and hopeful I would hit him. I threw my snowball and it landed just short of his feet, “Missed me! Missed me!” he cried gleefully, “And now I’ve got ANOTHER snowball,” he announced, scooping up the broken snow at his feet. “Eight!” Sophie then started packing her own and I took a couple shots at her, too, before completing the snowman’s head. I could barely lift it and it landed at a precarious angle on top. Not pretty, but done. Travis thrust the carrot into the middle of the snowman’s face, quickly returning to his snowballs, while Sophie begged to have an umbrella like Travis’. Okay, okay, I said going into the house and fetching her a force field. I wanted to be finished with the snowman, but they wanted to be doing. It was a difference, I noticed. Their engagement in process, mine in product. As I shoveled the walk, they moved to snow angels, and as I cleared the driveway, I dumped shovelfuls on top of Sophie, burying her. Soon Travis had to head home for lunch…we never did have that snowball fight. Sophie and I headed into our house for Snow Princess decorations—jeweled flip flops, a plastic lei, a feathery tiara and a magic wand. Sophie set the flip flops at the Snow Princess’s feet while I decorated the parts out-of-reach. Once we were finished, Sophia threw her arms around her and declared, “she’s my best friend!” I realized that we had been out for about two hours. I had forgotten to go to the gym, forgotten to thrown on the wash and was nowhere but here, in my denuded front yard with Sophia and the Snow Princess.

We headed inside to warm up with a bath and hot chocolate. Later we peeked out at the Princess. She was still there. And the snowballs remained on my porch, growing smaller as the afternoon sun rose higher. This is who I want to be.

The Work of Parents is Play

Sophia and I have fallen into a relaxed routine in the morning. I make breakfast and she plays beside me. It allows me to have subtle input into her play, without actively directing it. I can help her sustain the play activity, adding voices, suggesting ideas, while taking care of some necessary tasks.

I never thought this day would come.

I have long been Sophia’s playmate. I’ve sat through countless (and endless) pretend meals served by the surly waitress at Sophie’s café. I’ve received questionable health care (and been charged outrageous co-pays) by Dr. Sophia at the hospital. I’ve been turned into a cat, a cow, and a car, under the spell of The Great Sophini and her magic wand. Sophia didn’t come up with these activities on her own (though she was always an enthusiastic participant). I taught her how to engage in these possibilities, to inhabit these fantasies, to pretend. And then she ran with it.

One might think that play comes naturally to children. And it absolutely does. Children imitate in play the activities they observe in the world around them. It was no surprise that Sophia’s first attempts at make believe involved talking on a cell phone and food preparation, two things I do on a daily basis, multiple times a day. Play is how children begin to make sense of the world and their place in it.

But there is so much in our society that serves to inhibit play, that squashes and replaces innate play impulses: two of the biggest offenders, I believe, are toys and television.

Here is my beef with modern toys: they have become so sophisticated that they have essentially put children out of a job, rendering imagination obsolete. A kitchen that sizzles, a ball that giggles and rolls on its own, frogs that have several pre-recorded rote responses in English and in Spanish—the very toys that appear to inspire play, in reality, wind up subverting it. They play FOR the children. Kids merely have to push a button to get a response. Parents may notice that these toys are not played with for any length of time. They are picked up, admired momentarily, and discarded. They fill basements, playrooms and garbage dumps. They do nothing to inspire creativity, wonder, and discovery (except perhaps in a few future engineers who disassemble them to see how they work). At best, they are boring. At worst, they’re annoying as hell.

I find TV particularly insidious because, at first glance, it appears that it inspires ideas for play. In reality, television is a thief of imagination. Kids become the characters they see. They act out scenes from their favorite shows. They indulge fantasies of other worlds, other ways of being. But if you listen carefully to this kind of play, you come to realize that the children are working off of scripts. They have no imagination outside of the images they have been fed. They don’t know how to develop a unique character, a novel world. This phenomenon, in turn, feeds the toy industry that produces all the figurines, props, and costumes that allow children to recreate what they’ve observed on TV.

This is not to say that all toys (or even all television) is bad. In fact, many low tech toys that are facsimiles of real objects—or better yet the REAL OBJECTS themselves—are great props for the imagination.

Case in point: Sophia is obsessed with all things medical. Perhaps she’s trying to master her fear of needle shots. Perhaps she is trying to emulate her grandfather, who is a doctor. Or maybe it’s simply inspired by her great love for Curious George, who often finds himself in the hospital with a broken limb or an ingested puzzle piece. Regardless, as medicine is her current interest, I decided to try to find her a doctor’s kit. I quickly became frustrated with the expensive packs of molded plastic I found even in the best toy stores. Nothing looked “real” or remotely worth the money. I decided to look online and found a blog written by a mom who shared my frustration. She said that real stethoscopes and blood pressure machines could be purchased for less than what some toy companies charged for the fake stuff. Turns out, she was right. I quickly assembled a doctor’s kit that consisted of a light pen, a real eye chart, a stethoscope, a blood pressure machine, an old ace bandage, a pin that read Dr. Sophia Moore, a medicine syringe that looked satisfyingly like a needle shot, a child-sized lab coat, and a tendonitis elbow brace—all for under $30. I haven’t brought out all of the pieces yet, but already, the ace bandage is the number one utilized “toy” in our house.

That ace bandage was sitting in my dresser drawer for years. It only became a toy when it was introduced as such.

Play is a life skill; it brings joy into relationships, transforms work into passion, makes life worth living. Those who know how to play have the ability to think and act creatively. They are fun to be around. When I watch Sophia initiate a play activity with a peer, I can see the foundation of leadership skills taking hold.

But like most life skills, play needs to be taught. There is nothing simple about being a teacher of play. It requires a certain lack of self-consciousness and a lot of silliness, a willingness to get down on the ground and become everything you’re not, an ability to transform the everyday into the extraordinary. But of all the responsibilities I have as a parent, it is the one in which I take the greatest pleasure and reap the greatest rewards.

The Shared Madness of Two

Once again, we are driving, making our two-hour commute to (or from, for the trips bleed together) my mother’s nursery school. Sophia is clinging to her beloved Snakey-Pie, who appeared in my closet one day before she was born (A county fair win? An abandoned toy? A misguided gift?) and somehow insinuated himself in our lives. He is an unlikely choice of transitional object—made of cheap velour (I’ve already repaired him twice), reptilian (What’s cuddly about a snake?) and of dubious background. But Sophia lovingly strokes his fluorescent orange fuzz as she sucks insistently at her left thumb, eyes blissful and content. I, of course, named him for all the ironic reasons that are self-evident. Which is completely lost on Sophie, because his name is adequately captures his dearness to her.

I am singing Snake-a-licious, or what I deem Snakey-Pie’s rap:

He’s snake-a-licious.
He does the dishes.
He likes your kisses.
He’s snake-a-licious.

Sophie pops her thumb out of her mouth long enough to shout, “again!”

He’s snake-a-licious.
He swims with fishes.
He grants your wishes.
He’s snake-a-licious.

Anyone, with perhaps the exception of my husband, who has come to accept that I personify most inanimate objects and occasionally pay homage to them with rap songs, would probably think I’m a tad embarrassing. And maybe a little strange to boot. But Sophia (at least for now) thinks I’m wonderful.

Together, we don our “boa” boas, do “like maniac,” to explicit Gwen Stefani lyrics, and run through sixteen dramatic permutations of uttering the words, “I’m in BIG trouble.” (Say it angry, Mom moms, now say it sad, now say it to the sky…). We act out scenes of pettiness and jealousy with her dress-able wooden dolls, practice toileting her babies (giving them baths when they fall in), and paint her two-year-old toenails gold.

There is a disorder still on the books of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders known as Folie a Deux or "the shared madness of two":

1. A delusion develops in an individual in the context of a close relationship with another person or persons who have an already established delusion.
2. The delusion is similar in content to that of the person who already has an established delusion.
3. The disturbance is not better accounted for by another psychotic disorder, mood disorder with psychotic features, effects of a substance or general medical condition.

I don’t mean to make light of a psychological disorder (which is reportedly so rare that there is no prevalence or incidence data available on it), but I think it’s a terribly accurate description of what the joy of parenting is about for me. Because of Sophia, I am once again able to inhabit worlds of fancy and enjoy her as my companion in these worlds.

She transforms me into a whole barnyard of animals with the touch of her fairy wand. I can look at the sky and ask Sophia if it’s cloudy with a chance of meatballs, and she will answer gravely, “No, it’s cloudy with a chance of tomatoes.” We can call each other on banana phones in the produce section of Wegmans. Anything can and does happen.

This is the stuff real life is made of.