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. 

No Better, No Worse

Sometimes, when I hear the stories my friends tell about their kids, I feel a little envious. From the outside, there is something that appears more fun about having multiple children. When I step into their homes, there is always activity, lively conversations, and laughter. Of course, minutes later there is fighting, crying, and a plea for mom to intervene.

You can’t have it all.

My house is quiet. One night, our neighbor (with four children) came over to find Kevin and I nestled on the couch, working on a crossword together. It was a little after 7:30, and we had just put Sophia to sleep. The floor lamps cast a warm, orange glow in the room. “You two look so cozy!” she said. “It’s so quiet in here,” she noticed. And we all absorbed the silence for a moment. “You could join us,” I offered, “hide out here for a bit?” “No,” she declined, “I have to get back to my piles of laundry.” She dropped off a flier for a local 5K and headed back across the street, where her house was humming with the energy of three boys and a toddler.

There are tradeoffs for this evening calm. By day, I am the entertainer and adversary. Sophia plays and fights with me, instead of a brother or sister. I organize countless playdates and chauffer her all over New Jersey to ensure she is not socially deprived, missing out on peer interaction, and adopting my adult mannerisms, speech, and seriousness.

Sophia has filled the sibling void with an imaginary sister, also named Sophia, who is two years older than she and lives in California with her mother, Melissa and her father, Kevin. I note that even her imaginary sister is absent…living in a parallel universe, only to be thought and talked about, but not actually played with or talked to. This is how Sophie has come to terms with her only status. I admire her resourcefulness.

I am resigned to eternal ambivalence. Certainly, it was a wise decision to not have a second child. We don’t have the resources…financially, emotionally, temporally to embrace another infant at this point in our family life. It is easy to rationalize away the feelings that accompany this decision. But when I stop thinking about how much sense it makes, I do feel a little sorrow, a mourning of an experience I will never have. If one of my earlier pregnancies had survived, Sophia might have had that older sibling she longs for…I might not be so fearful of getting pregnant again, even at the advanced age of 40, and giving birth again.

But this is the way things happened, and this is the way things are. I could spend my time longing for what we lack or I could focus on my gratitude for what I have.

And so, I live vicariously through other families. I delight in their anecdotes. I offer unsolicited advice to help manage sibling rivalry, once again in the comfortable position of being able to offer ideas that I don’t have to execute. The other night I went out to dinner with Nan and our mutual friend, Pam, who we have known all of our adult lives. In a few transcendent moments, I pulled back and thought about how our conversations have changed over the years…from work (we were all teachers together), to marriage, and now to our children. Pam was telling a story about her two boys, E.J. and Ryan.

“Ryan ran into my room and said, ‘E.J. is slapping his butt at me!’”

“What does that mean?” I asked, trying to envision the situation.

“Apparently, he lay down on the couch, flipped his legs over his head, and was slapping his butt. At Ryan.”

“And this was a personal affront to Ryan?” I was confused.

Pam shrugged, “I guess.”

I thought about it for a minute. “It seems to me that in order for Ryan to have thought E.J. was being provocative, E.J. must have said something provocative. Like, ‘I’m going to slap my butt at you!’ After all, there is nothing inherently annoying about someone slapping his own ass. It’s weird. Maybe a little distracting. But Ryan felt bothered by it, because E.J. told him he should be bothered by it.”

Pam agreed.

“So, just as Ryan chose to feel bothered by it, he could make a different choice. He could choose to leave. Or he could choose to think it’s funny. You could walk him through his options.” We brainstormed a list of things that Ryan could do when E.J. antagonized him in this way. It was fun. The same as it ever was.

There is something about the difference between our situations, the distance I have from being a mother of multiple kids that made it so much easier (and enjoyable) than to generate ideas for how to deal with my own day-to-day tribulations. There is no better. There is no worse. There is only different.

Had I not been able to have any children, I think I would have forever felt this absence, just as I imagine, if I had a house full of children, I would long for the quiet life I enjoy now.