Sibling Rivalry

One of the hardest things Maxine has ever gone through is accepting her baby sister.  She didn't understand why her mommy had to leave for 4 days and when her mommy came home there was a new baby in the house.  Yesterday I heard her say "maxine hindi big girl, maxine baby girl". Regression sucks big time!  Although half of her antics are funny (drinking from a baby bottle, drinking her sister's milk, wearing a small bib) the other half is not.  Especially not when she hits her shobe, even if she does it lightly.  Because of all this we are so careful with her, with them both.

 There is no perfect age to have a 2nd baby, some say that its better if the child is older so she'll want a sibling to play with and take care of.  But how old is older and do you really want a big age gap?  Others say that if you have them close together the older one can't complain yet because he literally cannot if he doesn't speak yet.  Good idea for the kids but not for the mom who has yet to regain her calcium and other stuff!  Also you don't want to be carrying a baby in your arms while carrying one in your belly.

I guess we cannot really put our kids in protective shells to make sure they never get hurt, because they will.  Whether its a sibling or a stranger who won't share his toys.  Our kids cannot and should not get everything they want just because they want it.  The other day we went to have our picture taken at a studio and before leaving the house Maxine was asking me who's going with us and I said "shobe" and she said "ayaw shobe sama, iwan shobe sa house".  I told her that shobe really is going because she needs to have pictures taken just like Maxine had hers when she was 4months old.  She still kept saying "ayaw" but had no choice in the matter.  She dealt with it, as a matter of fact she was ok with it.  She was her normal self in the car and when we were in the small grocery she even played with her sister's ear.

I guess we just have to be understanding of their feelings, just as we would if they were adults.  We (and when I say we, I mean the older generations who have no psychology behind their weird actions) sometimes abuse the fact that they are small and have no choice in things.  They don't understand that even if the kids are small they have feelings too.  Making the child jealous about her younger sibling will NOT help and its not that I want to protect M1, its that I want to protect M2 from her.  If M1 gets angry because of the constant nagging words like "okay, if you dont want me to carry you, i'll just carry shobe" then she'll get angry at her shobe and not just the adult.  *sigh* But I have learned that I really cannot control other people and I cannot keep Maxine inside the house.  I just wish that people would think first about how other people would feel before they spoke.  Even if the other person is just a small child... Especially because the other person IS a small child.