DotMoms

Little-Sister-Itis

By Sarah Rachel Egelman

My baby, who turns one this month and is hardly a baby anymore, has a bad case of little-sister-itis. That is what we call her permanent and incurable condition and it seems to be getting more acute. Symptoms include:

• frustration at being unable to walk/run/jump/climb like her big sister
• boundless joy at being the object of her big sister's attention
• arching of back and howling at the word "no"
• fits of giggling and hand clapping upon hearing her big sister sing or seeing her dance
• possible neck strain at constantly looking around for her big sister
• rejection of all age-appropriate toys
• attempting and often succeeding in playing with big kid toys like Legos and puzzles
• disinterest in board books
• extreme interest in big sister's favorite books
• super baby strength demonstrated by attempting to climb bunk bed ladder after big sister and getting farther up there than you would imagine; note: this is directly related to the condition found in parents called "heart palpitations"

I am a big sister myself. And the age difference between myself and my younger sister is only a few months less than between my girls. So I can empathize with Lilith when she is upset at finding Adina chewing up her books, messing up the puzzles she worked so hard at, or just getting the kind of hawk-eye attention a 1-year-old gets. But, I am starting to understand the younger sibling's point of view, too.

An early memory of mine is sitting on my bed, quietly playing while my little sister toddled into my room and swept all the books and toys off my shelf. She seemed to leave a trail of destruction wherever she went. But, as a mother, witnessing this same scene several times daily, I have come to rethink the scenario. Could it be that what I took as deliberate mischief was really my sister just wanting to play? Was she just trying to get my attention? Was she trying to keep up with me and play with the things I liked to play with?

Adina adores her big sister. Lilith is by far her favorite person, beating out me and her father easily. It seems my job these days is, however, to keep her little-sister-itis in check, encouraging the sweet behaviors and rechanneling the less endearing ones. I know that a bad case of big-sister-itis (jealousy and feelings of isolation, confusingly coupled with abundant love and an innate desire to protect) can get out of hand, too.

I am learning a lot about being a sister from being a mother, and thankfully the difficult side effects (sleep deprivation, frustration, heaps of laundry, inability to answer 700 "why" questions in a two-hour span) are always outweighed by the benefits of mother-itis (pure unconditional love, pride, creativity, humility and laughter).

Sarah Rachel Egelman is a community college instructor and freelance book reviewer who lives in New Mexico with her family. 

DotMoms Daily: "Teddy bear" teacher home, Dinner table deception, and more

Photo: Ray Ng, Time

In family-related news:
> New "fertility diet" gives couples hope (Newsweek)
> Anorexia risk may start before birth (HealthDay/USN&WR)
> More obese women die in childbirth (Reuters/MSNBC)
> Smaller babies grow up to be sadder adults (Reuters/MSNBC)
> The next Attention Deficit Disorder? (Time)
> Fever may improve behavior in autistic kids (ABC)
> Honey may help soothe kids' coughs (CBS/WebMD)
> Peanut allergies striking at earlier age (Reuters/ABC)
> Persistence key to kids eating veggies (CBS/WebMD)
> Does deception belong at the dinner table? (ABC)
> British teacher jailed over teddy bear arrives home (Reuters)
> Is "Golden Compass" selling atheism to kids'? (AP/CNN)
> Hey Santa, think outside the toy box (MSNBC)
> Girls make history by sweeping top honors at a science contest (NYTimes)
> Couples still view husband's career as more important (Reuters)

Bedtime parenting

By Anjali

I have a confession to make.

While many of you parents out there are fretting about transitioning your infant from the bassinet or family bed to a crib, and others are worrying about moving your toddler to a toddler bed or twin bed, and still others are rushing one kid out of a current bedding arrangement to accommodate a newer sibling, we here in suburban Atlanta are taking our own, sweet time.

You see, our nearly 6-year-old, who is actually very tall for her age, still sleeps, quite happily, in a toddler bed. And our 3-year-old? She sleeps in the very same place she's slept since birth –- a Pack 'n Play. That's right, our "baby" never even made it to a real crib!

And while neither one of our daughters can fully stretch out (please don't call child protective services on us), they love rolling onto their sides, crunching their bodies up, and falling blissfully into deep slumber.

Their bedding arrangements are not their fault. You see, my husband and I are just a little behind on things, that's all. Now that we've moved for the fourth and final time in four months, we've finally purchased Big Sister a full-size bed. And as soon as we get around to putting it together, and buy the mattresses to go with it, our eldest will at last be able to rest her head in a bed that fits her body.

As soon as that transition takes place, our 3-year-old will be presented with the opportunity of sleeping in her sister's old toddler bed. But because our little one is pretty attached to what she affectionately calls her "cribby," we’ve no intention of forcing the transition. Instead, we'll set it up in her room next to the Pack 'n Play, and let her decide what kind of sleeping arrangement she prefers.

It's a bit of delayed bedtime parenting on our part, but neither my husband nor I can complain. In the nearly six years we've been parents, we've almost never had difficulty getting either child to bed. And for the past few years, once in bed, we don't hear or see them for the next 12 hours. Now that's what I call a good night's sleep.

Anjali Enjeti-Sydow lives near Atlanta with her husband and two young girls. She looks forward to the day when she can make the transition from a queen-sized bed to a California king.

DotMoms Daily: Kids cookbook controversy, parental postpartum depression, and more

Image: Rudy Archuleta, Time

In family-related news:
> The power of birth order (Time)
> Study focuses on dads' postnatal depression (Sydney Morning Herald)
> U.S. House acts on postpartum depression (ABC)
> Panel to consider restrictions on youth cold medicines (WashPost)
> How to get kids to eat veggies too common knowledge (NYTimes)
> Maine school defends birth control program (AP/CBS)
> Schools report staph infections, deaths raise the alarm (NYTimes)
> Children's health deal sought after veto upheld (AP/MSNBC)
> Hannah Montana goes 3D on movie screens (UPI)

Done but not finished: A complete family

By Sarah Rachel Egelman

I sit here in my home office typing and my seven-month-old daughter is capering behind me. She is covered in dust and dirt from sweeping the hardwood floors with her body as she crawls around and I have had to pry several cords from her strong little hands already. She is supposed to be napping. But, after nursing her over half an hour and laying in the quiet, dark room with her only to have her start crawling all over the bed, pulling off my glasses and laughing, I got us up and got myself to work. I turn to look at her now, to make sure she is not in danger of choking or pulling something down on her head (this room being the least baby proofed) and she grins up at me, giddy with her illicit freedom.

In this room also are a baby seat and a swing. I could strap her into either one of those, but these days she is too big and too mobile to be strapped into anything but her car seat and the Ergo carrier when we are outside the house. No, now is the time for her to explore, to get dirty, to learn boundaries, to find out the those dust bunnies are not very tasty at all. Maybe I should get out the broom...

Soon the swing and the seat will be gone and she will have more room to play in here while I work. Barring a very big surprise, my husband and I will not be having any more children. After my oldest daughter (not quite 3 and a half) was born we were not sure we wanted more children. We were so happy and it was so much work and why mess with a good thing? But, I had saved all her baby clothes and baby toys and board books and finally I had to admit I wanted another child.

Our two girls are very different, in looks and in temperament. And now our family feels totally complete. We're done. And now I am able to start getting rid of all the baby stuff that has, honestly, cluttered our house for over three years. We had a garage sale this summer, I have sold stuff on our local Craigslist. I have traded clothes in for store credit, donated some and passed other items on to new moms. My baby is growing fast; she no longer needs anything smaller than nine months and so all of it can go. So can the infant tub which she has outgrown already, and the plastic infant toys I no longer want to keep.

With the money from the things I am choosing to sell we have started a bunk bed fund. My oldest wants bunk beds and they are the best solution for when we move the baby from our room into her sister's. I am getting rid of a lot of stuff, but need to acquire the things for the next stage:

We are done having babies but far from done raising our family.

Sarah Rachel Egelman is a community college instructor and freelance book reviewer who lives in New Mexico with her family. 

Living a comic life

By Amy M.

I'm really starting to feel like my life is a "Family Circus" comic.

Let's start with my six-week post-partum check-up, one of my earlier ventures out as a mom of two. Fortunately my mother was willing to stay with the kids in the waiting room. As the nurse called me back, Lauren started to cry. The nurse said to go ahead and feed her. I thought I fed her long enough to at least last through my appointment. But when I emerged about 45 minutes later, I discovered my mom with a hysterical baby and hyper son in the nursing room, where they retreated when Lauren started to scream her head off. My mom made the choice not to further scare the first-time expectant mothers in the waiting room, who had already been staring with fear at my offspring.

At Target -- a store I visit so frequently that the woman who works in the snack bar knows my order (just a soda) -- one afternoon I had just finished nursing Lauren, so I pulled off my nursing cover, sat my baby up to burp her, and she promptly projectile vomited all over me, to the horror of the 10-year-old girl sitting nearby at the snack bar. The look on the girl's face was priceless. All I could do was laugh, and then suggest to her she wait 15 or 20 years to have a child.

The projectile vomit was a little unusual for Lauren, but spitting up is not. She wears a bib all the time because she's always erupting like an active volcano. However, the bib does not catch all the spit-up. Unfortunately she has christened quite a few store aisles with her eruptions. Because she's a "happy spitter," sometimes I only know from the "splat" I hear as the spit-up hits the floor. Don't worry, I clean it up. Just be careful if you're in a Target in central Pennsylvania, especially in the baby section.

Lauren's frequent spit-up incidents in stores have led my son Alex to declare "Spill, aisle 4" anytime she spits up, whether we're at a store or not. Like most kids his age, quite a few funny comments come out of his mouth. When Lauren cries, he says she sounds like a chainsaw (pretty accurate description, unfortunately). And he recently said Lauren and her daddy have similar hair because they don't have any on their foreheads. I don't think my husband appreciated the comparison.

Fortunately, Alex is very sweet toward his sister, sometimes too sweet. He can't pass her without touching her peach-fuzz-covered head. And he loves to show her off to his friends. His teachers told me he talks about sisters a lot at school. He claims to have 900 of them. He also says he knows the word for sister in French, but that word changes every day.

I never thought the medical aspects of Lauren's birth had much effect on Alex, because he never talked about them. But I guess he was paying more attention in the hospital than I realized, because a teacher informed me he recently pretended to deliver a little girl's baby on the playground. Oy vey.

When I'm changing the thirtieth diaper blowout of the day and Alex is complaining about a scratchy tag in his shirt as if he were covered in poison ivy, I remind myself that all things considered, life with two kids is good. Very good. I'm a lucky gal.

Amy M. lives in Pennsylvania with her family and works full time as a writer/editor for a large university.

Back-to-school surprise

By Amy Heesacker

When my first child cried out for me on the first day of preschool, I lurked at the end of the hall, wiping my own tears and phoning a friend who helped me stay strong. After walking him in to his first day of Kindergarten, I sobbed in my van while imagining my little Nemo swimming unprotected toward an ocean of sharks and scuba diving dentists.

All of this I more or less expected of myself. I’m pretty emotional (my husband will laugh out loud at this gross understatement of my lability), and I felt that these were big milestones in both my son's and my own development. We were beginning the process of letting go, and I accurately anticipated our mutual apprehension, sadness and muted excitement.

Despite my previous experience "letting go," or perhaps because of it, I wholly miscalculated the reactions to my second child's initiation into the school system this year.

My daughter is nothing if not independent. In her toddler years she often preferred to spend library story hour sitting in the lap of a complete-stranger-mommy, often to the dismay of the complete-stranger-mommy's youngster! She is also happiest when playing with other children and never fails to make an easy friend in whatever line or waiting room we happen to be confined to that day.

So naturally, I predicted that the transition to preschool would be smooth and possibly even enjoyable for both of us. She would be in her element surrounded by new friends and new story-time laps. And I felt some guilt-tinged enthusiasm for those many childfree hours I'd have to fill.

In the unlikely event that my daughter did experience some anxiety I thought that I would handle it like a pro. After all I had done this before and lived to write about it.

So, what was my back to school surprise? My daughter cried, not just one day but the whole gut-wrenching week (...and still counting). After prying her fingers from my suddenly ambivalent body, I drove away in a trance, completely thrown off by my error in judgment.

This time I hadn't prepared for tears, hers or mine. When I was safely hidden in my awkwardly quiet home, I sat on my couch and bawled, astonished that I had foolishly believed that the process of letting go could ever be easy.

Amy Heesacker is a thirty-something SAHM and part-time psychology professor living in the deep South with her husband and two children.

Siblings at war

By Amanda

I had always hoped my daughters would be friends, despite their three-and-a-half year age difference. I knew it would be a long time before the years between them would dissipate and allow them to share common interests, but I longed for them to at least play together. About a year ago, when they were 3 years old and 6 years old, it finally happened.

My older daughter loves to be in control, and my little one simply wants attention. This seemed like a perfect match, and it was, until sibling rivalry reared its ugly head. Not having grown up with a sister I never experienced the phenomenon of sibling rivalry firsthand until I became a parent. But now I am viewing it in almost textbook form. 

My older daughter, who is very serious and precise, gets frustrated with her free-spirited, adorable little sister, who refuses to adhere to her very specific instructions. She is brilliant and beautiful, but tortured by the jealousy that comes with having a cute blue-eyed, blonde shadow whose smile inspires hugs and kisses from everyone around her. 

This lethal combination inevitably deteriorates into name-calling. The big sister has a litany of words that we have banned as a result of her inability to tolerate her little sister. They include: ugly, stupid, "meaner wiener" (don't ask), and phrases like "I don't love you" and "I'm going to rip your head off." The little one has a very small arsenal of her own and usually comes crying to me about her big sister's tirade. I handle this not very deftly by comforting her and, in turn, scolding her older sister for the hundredth time about using words that hurt feelings.

The irony is that ultimately, no matter what cruel things my oldest daughter says, my little one still wants to play with her. Unlike most adults, she forgives and forgets quickly, ready to embrace her older sister again even before her tears have dried. She is also the first one to come to her big sister's defense when I scold her and threaten to punish her for her transgressions. Often she'll run to her and hug her much taller sister around the waist and cry,  "She didn't mean it Momma, really she didn't.  Don't be mad at her."

The truth is that my youngest daughter has a soft heart; a heart that I know will make her journey in life much gentler. My older daughter on the other hand is full of drive and ambition -- traits that will make her successful, but will also lead to frustration and disappointment at times. My hope is that with the support and encouragement of her younger sister, she will be able to achieve her goals. In turn, I hope that with her older sister's direction, my youngest daughter will learn about being responsible, working hard and following her dreams. 

My dream is that they navigate life together into adulthood with the understanding that unconditional love is a gift to be cherished.

Amanda lives in North Carolina with her husband and two daughters.

DotMoms Daily: Breastfeeding and obseity, Integrating schools, and more

Photo: Rice.edu

In family-related news now:
> Breastfeeding may not ward off obesity (Reuters/MSNBC)
> Teletubbies, TV can't teach first words (Reuters)
> Should twins be separated in school? (CBS)
> Across U.S., a new look at school integration (NYTimes)
   Related: Divided court limits schools' use of race (WashPost)
> One-third of online teens bullied, study finds (AP/CNN)
> 'Harry Potter' doesn't feel the magic in first kiss (AP/MSNBC)
> Mommy is truly dearest (NYTimes)

Perspective: Mornings

By Sarah Rachel Egelman

It is 6:48 a.m. My husband is trying to be quiet as he gets ready for work, but I cringe at every small sound and know I will not get any more sleep today.

The baby, curled up next to me, is restless, beginning to wake. Next, I hear my daughter crying for me from her room. She wants me to come get her and carry her back to my bed, but I don't want to get up. I yell back that she should come on in, but this only upsets her. I go get her, and she is mad at her father for some reason and starts yelling at him and grumpily settles herself into our bed, demanding a cup of milk. It is now 7 a.m. and I already know this will be an exhausting day.

* * *

Another day. It is 7:10 a.m., and I hear her footsteps in the hall. It is a Saturday so my husband is still home and asleep. My daughter climbs into our bed, and I scoot the baby safely over. She nestles down between her father and I and tells us she loves us and had good dreams about golden dragons. The baby wakes at the sound of her voice and starts smiling and cooing. I go to the kitchen and get her a cup of milk and crawl back into bed with my family. We are snuggly and sleepy and we will have a busy day.

* * *

Days later. It is 7:19 a.m. and I cannot believe that she choose this day, the first day of preschool, to sleep late.

I get up to brush my teeth and get dressed and it wakes her. She is mad I am not waiting for her in my room so I get back into bed with her and she calms down. She tells me she doesn't want to start school but then is distracted by a "cuddle party" with her little sister who is finally awake, too. She eventually picks out her favorite clothes and fills her purse with treasures and we head to school. I have promised her we will bake cookies when she comes home.

At the school, she holds my hand for a moment, shy of her teacher and the classroom. But before I know it she has joined a group of girls to hear a story and I say goodbye. The baby and I head out into the 9 a.m. sun.

The day is getting hot already, but there is a nice breeze. We drive to the store for baking ingredients. I picture her in her classroom, cautious but curious, brave and interested and I know this will be a wonderful day.

Sarah Rachel Egelman is a community college instructor and freelance book reviewer who lives in New Mexico with her family.