Funny how kids change a family’s dynamics, and how they don’t, at the same time. Of course, the clan remains a family, but the kings and queens and pawns and knights shuffle on the chess board when they get rooked out of their comfortable roles.
They STILL are FAM-i-lee, and, in this family of four brothers, getting along without any sisters for theeeeeee, unlike the Sister Sledge song:
The most challenging adjustment new parents are forced to make is adapting to a new human in the house. Observing those post-partum expressions can be funnier than imagining Tiger Woods battling gophers on his favorite course. Speaking of:
After all, raising kids can be as challenging as ridding your lawn of gophers, because situations with rugrats are as different as their personalities, just as the yard rodents’ resistance tactics make them so elusive to, and defiant of, conventional approaches.
Similarly, despite parental guidance manuals laying out battle plans for layettes, stories are legion about how solicitous first parents are when the first child gets hurt or sick: The parents move hell and high water to take care of the scrape or scratch, or they head straight to the ER without even stopping to Google fever for an online diagnosis. By the time the third or fourth apple falls from the tree, they have become inured to parenting perils that they just might casually tell the kid not to bleed on the carpet.
Thus it was with Vincent and light and noise. Skip and Melissa were like Noise Nazis and Light Brigades when they brought THAT bundle home. I’m not blaming THEM, mind you; they were new parents. So, when Vincent jumped out of his diaper when a door slammed, or squinted when a sunbeam smiled into the room, they thought they needed to cloak him in protection.
That’s why they shushed me when I accidentally let a cupboard door slam, and quickly closed the blinds when I tried to let some light into the room at high noon because they had the place so shuttered that it seemed like midnight.
They lightened up when Jack came along, more so with Luke and now, well, now with Patrick, they don’t mind that their house is louder than a Super Bowl halftime show, and why not let the sun shine in?
Oddly enough, Patrick doesn’t mind it, either, probably because he got so used to the cacophony when he was in the womb. It’s natural to him to have three boys screaming next to his crib, so he doesn’t even stir while sleeping. I have no doubt that he’d be able to sleep next to a railroad track as a steam engine roared by.
Each boy has adjusted admirably to the new apple on the tree, too, although that also has been an evolving process as the family has grown
At 2, firstborn mama’s baby Vincent evolved quickly from suspicion and a hint of jealousy to a willingness to tell his mom, when baby Jack cried, “Mommy, he’s hungry. You go give him your nipple.”
Greater love hath no brother than the willingness to give up his place at the trough.
Second-born mama’s baby Jack also was about 2, and similarly attached to mommy, when Luke popped out, so I was worried about how he might react.
Imagine my surprise when, upon seeing the intruder for the first time at the hospital, Jack exclaimed: “He’s ME.” How cool is THAT?
Luke was, and still is, the most possessive of Mom, but he has done remarkably well in welcoming the bun from the oven. Which is not to say that he isn’t dragging around on Mom’s leg and pleading for her to hold him when she’s already got her hands full, but he also smothers the little Patrick with affection.
All of this is not to say that everything is peaceful and huggy and kissy EVERY DAY. After all, they’re siblings, and that means rivalry, and they can mix it up with the best of them.
But I’m prattling on beyond my welcome here, so I’ll continue this thesis on family relationships in my next installment, next week.
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