Bond of brothers

My boys are lying facedown and soaking wet in a patch of sun on our thawed-out deck, relishing the 79 degree Colorado sunshine after a long winter (which, in all honesty, is probably nowhere close to finished, but I don't have the heart to tell them...) and taking turns slapping each other on the back.

"What's happening?!" they trade off shouting, dissolving into giggles as they slap each other over and over again, imitating a character from one of their favorite books. They're drenched from freezing hose water and their rash guards and tiny swimsuits are plastered to their bodies. And they are supremely happy.

Just a week or two ago, down with fevers and ear infections and endless 20 degree days, these same boys were scratching each other's metaphorical eyes out in unrelenting Lego squabbles and disagreements over whose turn it was to open the garage door with the special remote. And to be fair, they'll probably be fighting again in 15 minutes.

But for now they are deeply content and completely engrossed in one another, their 19-month age difference barely a blip on their consciousness except, of course, when Joey feels the need to assert his chronological superiority with every checkout guy, barista, and random stranger in the library.
Then there will be a reckoning of birth order, a rattling off of personal information and an unbidden recitation of names.

RIP, mohawks.

Their personalities are so different, and yet they have a sameness between them that can only be explained by a shared pedigree. 

One is bossy, loud, impatient, slow to see the needs of others; the other more gentle, more reflective, more willing to console and to share. But I see the way they rub against each other's temperaments, one emboldened by the fierce desire to keep up with an adored big brother, the other occasionally gentled by a younger one's needs.

It's amazing the way they were clearly designed to be together. And I'm amazed at how very little I had to do with it. I mean yes, I produced them both, but I couldn't have planned the ways they complete each other, the ways they compete with each other, the ways they force generosity and coax cooperation and unselfishness out of day to day situations.

I have no doubt they'd learn these things eventually, be it in school or the workplace. But I'd rather they learned them here, now, sooner...so they have as much time as possible to sink deep in, becoming woven into the fabric of developing personalities.

Their baby sister is beloved by them both, but not fully of their world yet. She's been grudgingly allowed into the bathtub after dinner time, and I'm seeing increased efforts to include her in playtime (or at least throw toys in her path to prevent screaming fits), but she hasn't breached their shared imaginary world.

Maybe as she grows she'll be welcomed into the club, or maybe the next sibling, growing now beneath my beleaguered ribcage, will be her match.

But he or she will be so much more than that, too. More than just another playmate or a contrasting personality to add to the crew; a unique and wholly unknown other to enter into the intimate world my kids share only with each other. Sometimes while I watch them play my heart constricts fiercely at the thought that my time with them is limited by the difference in our ages. I might get 50 years with them if I'm lucky. Their siblings might get 80.

They'll grow old together because they're growing up together. I know it's true, because every week on  Wednesday or Thursday night I slip out of the house after bedtime duties and drive a few miles to a predetermined spot to meet two of my sisters and, occasionally, our brother who live nearby. We have drinks and sometimes dinner, too, and we laugh about stuff only people who survived life with the same crazy parents (hi, mom and dad!) under the same roof can.

And now that babies have come and jobs have demanded relocations and friends have dispersed across the globe, we've become, just as mom and dad endlessly reminded us we would, each other's best grown up friends.

I can't wait to see that for my boys. Even though I probably won't be privy to the inner workings of it. Even though I'm already being left behind, imperceptibly, day by day as they grow and change and need less of me, but arguabley more of each other.

I hope when they're sharing beers together one day 30 years from now they can forgive a whole host of my failures and shortcomings as a parent for the simple fact that I gave them each their best friend. And I hope they encourage each other to strive tirelessly to improve their aim, because their bathroom smells exactly the way you might imagine a small space shared by two masculine preschoolers would.

Love you, boys. And I love your love for each other. Don't ever let it grow cold.

The Case for Siblings

(Cross-posted at Catholic Exchange)

As I sit here with a few stolen minutes to give to my keyboard, my newborn daughter napping in my lap and my two young sons playing soccer in the backyard with the teenager I pay to entertain them twice a week, I can't help but worry that sometimes my children are being shortchanged by, well, each other.

When my husband and I got married in the Catholic Church, we vowed "to accept children lovingly from God" and thus far we've said yes 3 times in 4.5 years. That's a whole lot of yeses, and to be honest, some days I feel the weight of how many "no's" I must say to them each on a daily basis because of it.

No, I can't read with you right now, I'm doing the laundry…want to help me?

No, I can't play cars with you, I'm nursing your sister. 

No, you cannot watch me take a shower.

No, this isn't a good time to go ride bikes in the driveway. I'm giving your brother a bath.

And on and on.

I was thumbing through our city's rec center summer activity guide, and I sighed as I contemplated the cost and logistics of undertaking pre school swimming lessons for our 3 year old.

It's just too much right now. Maybe next summer. Heck, I was a lifeguard in high school, maybe we'll buy a family pass and I'll teach him myself…while trying to keep his brother and sister alive at the same time.

By our culture's standards for raising happy and well-adjusted kids, mine are being seriously shortchanged. They wear thrifted clothes and play with garage sale toys. They don't have iPads. They share a bedroom at night and they share mom three ways by day. Working from home allows me to be more physically present to them, but mentally and emotionally I'm often far away. Even when all the chores are done and the deadlines are met, there is sometimes little left of me by 5 pm other than a docile willingness to be led to the couch for a few mindless repetitions of the Grumpy Ladybug.

We don't do tons of activities because, quite frankly, taking all three of them somewhere more exciting than Costco is just hard. Right now it feels like it has always been hard, and I wonder whether things will change when they are a little older.

Then there are moments like this morning, when my oldest son looks lovingly at his 2-month old sister kicking her legs in the air on the family room carpet and asks me when she will be big enough to play with him, because "he can't wait!"

Those moments give me the strength to keep soldiering through these demanding, physically draining days of herding toddlers and nursing babies. We're in a rebuilding phase, and these are the investment years. I know it, because I've seen it with my own eyes.

This past weekend my younger sister got married to a wonderful man. She is the 3rd of seven kids, and all of us stood at the altar with them and witnessed their vows. We partied late into the evening afterwards, burning it up on the dance floor until we were quite literally the last people to exit the building. When I look at the seven of us together, spanning from middle school to early parenthood, it's mind blowing to see the beauty and the camaraderie that has emerged from the early years of chaos and sacrifice and never-enough-to-go-around.

There was more than enough, as it turned out. And when I think back on our childhood, all I see are the good things my parents were able to give us because of their "yeses" … all seven of them. I have friendships spanning decades that will last all my life long; in short, my parents made the ultimate estate planning decision, and our inheritance will be rich indeed.

So tonight at bedtime, frazzled and exhausted, I resolve to try to savor the sweet madness of two little boys jumping in and out of each other's cribs while a fussing baby demands her after-dinner snack. Yes, it's hard right now…but they're worth it. We're investing in generations, after all.