Sister Summer Lovin'

by Cathy

When my first child was born, I was over! the! moon! that it was a girl. When I got pregnant with my second, I was obsessed with it now also being a girl. So much so, that I scoured Amazon for books on this and found one called, "How to Have a Girl". Yes, not only does such a book exist, but I found it and I bought it...just to make sure the odds were stacked in my favor of having yet another girl.

Why go to such ridiculous lengths, you may ask?

I was a child who grew up with a sister and I wanted nothing more than for me to have children that were sisters. The secrets, the gossip, the clothes/makeup-sharing, the advice, the countless nights awake talking, the tears, the happiness, the vacations, the boys, the experiences, the childhood we both shared and still reminisce about...THIS is what I wanted my kids to experience.

So when my second was also a girl, I was elated! Ecstatic! The happiest mom on earth! NOW they can grow up to experience that closeness. That bond. That...dislike?

I just couldn't get it. My sister and I had four years apart and my girls, five years. That should put us on the same level, right? However, when my young one got old enough to speak, understand and try to "play" with her sister, it was like watching rams butting heads. Add to that, the fact that they couldn't be more different in every possible way - personality, attitude, likes and dislikes - this was not turning out to be the romanticized Disney movie I had envisioned in my hormone-afflicted head. The fights. The frustration. The annoyance. I mused to them aloud almost every day:

"Why can't you guys just get along?!"
"My sister and I never did these things to each other!"
"Just play together NICELY!!"
"You guys are sisters and you will be each others' best friend for life. Don't you get that?!"

These would be followed minutes later by one of them tattling about what the other did. On it went like this to the point where Joe and I pondered if they were ever going to get along and I, sad that they would never allow themselves to experience the closeness that having a sister brings. Until this summer....

Magically, as if a sparkly baton came swooping into our house and bippety-boppety-booped them out of their state of hate, they began getting along.

Seemingly overnight, giggles and laughter replaced screaming and fighting. Music replaced door slamming. They began videotaping themselves on their phones, pods and pads doing silly, fun, sisterly things. They were hanging out more, making duct tape crafts together, watching YouTube and listening to music. They created their own inside jokes. Their own language. Their own humor. And the kicker? My youngest, who has asked me to lay/sit on her bed every. single. night. since she was a toddler, has suddenly stopped asking. Just like that. Now she snuggles with her sister, and stays up late as they giggle and chat the night away, the same way I did with my sister.

Sigh. Finally. Turns out that patience is a virtue that mother nature intended to take its course.

Ari turned seven years old yesterday. As I struggle through the fact that my toddler is now a young lady, I am comforted by what I see blossoming between them. Bella made her a card and put a picture on it from a few years ago. They look close...

...but now, are truly closer.

I step precariously and with much trepidation to the place in my mind where I feel like they have begun this wondrous and fulfilling journey on experiencing all the comfort and happiness that their relationship brings, as I know things won't be perfect. I am not saying that there won't be another fight or argument - there will be many. Now at least they have begun to realize, and will more so as they grow, that there is a special bond that binds them that can never be broken...

Sisterhood

Home Alone

by Cathy

Many parents dream of the day where they can have a little freedom and flexibility in the form of allowing their tweens to stay home alone so they can run out and get a few things done. Bonus if the said tween is able to take care of a younger, self-sufficient sibling if need be. 

I am happy to announce that this time has finally come for me.

No more forced outings to Jewel with my kids to pick up emergency gallons of milk; no more working around the kids' schedules; no more whining and resistance. We are each free to do our own thing.

Naturally, the first few "separations" came with trepidation on both ends:

"Remember, no answering the phone unless it's me or papi. Absolutely no answering the door and do not, under any circumstance, turn on the stove."

"Are you sure you'll only be twenty minutes? What if it takes you longer?!"

I am pleased to say that we have all passed the initiation period of this rite of passage. We are more comfortable with these brief periods of separation, although, I still keep checking in on them every fifteen minutes or so with updates as to my whereabouts - (I can only hope they will do the same in the coming years). 

I did learn the hard way, however, that the best way to get through to my iPad-Instagraming addict of a child was by "KIKing" her, an IM alert that pops up on the iPad screen. The house phone was apparently never heard by either kid, probably because the Disney channel was blaring at a volume that would drown out a bomb explosion, and Bella's cell phone was nowhere nearby. It never is. But the iPad? That thing is basically slung around her neck and plugged into her butt.

One of the many perks of being absent for these brief excursions of alone time is that I am not privy to every. single. little. fight, scream, tattle or battle fought between my two kids. Or so I thought. Thanks to technology, my kids' pseudo emergencies, battles and tattles follow me wherever I go. Behold the string of texts I have received on my phone:

Text tattling. Kevin McAllister didn't have this luxury in 1990.

The Sharpie is still evident on my dining room table and the Styrofoam Force-Feed Fiasco turned out to be one, little S-shaped peanut filler administered by my six-year old prankster troublemaker, to my almost 12-year old.

While I would never mute or irresponsibly not check my phone while out, I do have the luxury of choosing to:

a) ignore the text if it's not an emergency 

b) text back that I will handle it when I get home or 

c) tell them to work it out on their own. 

And by the time I do get home, the fauxmergencies have boiled over and have become forgotten.

Now, if I can only count on them to manage two would-be home burglars by strategically and creatively outsmarting and consequently, thwarting their efforts while the hubby and I are on a trip to Paris? That would be worth text tattling about.

Separating Dogs

by Patti

I just spent 4 days and nights separating dogs.

We took in Gaucho's brother Bento while his owners vacationed, and the two dogs' brotherly love bordered on Fatal Attraction. If they weren't rolling around in circles on top of each other, they were pawing at each other's faces; if they weren't pawing each other's faces, they were stealing each other's food; if they weren't stealing each other's food, they were chasing each other and skidding headfirst into walls; if they weren't chasing each other and skidding headfirst into walls, they were humping each other. Brokeback Brothers.

Needless to say, the fear that Gaucho's heft would crush Bento, or that Bento's playful yet aggressive nips would leave a hole in the side of Gaucho's face, meant that I spent 4 days and nights playing referee, and all I did all the time was separate them. Exhausting, I tell you!

One night, after a long day at work and then an entire rest-of-the-day spent separating the shit out of those dogs, M came home from work in a lively mood. I was laying on the couch, the dogs snoring in their respective crates (at last!), and M began clanking around in the kitchen, heating up the dinner I had left for him. Suddenly I heard salsa music bouncing out of the kitchen, and I rose frantically from the couch. "SHHHHH!"
M looked at me, surprised. "Why, SHHHHH?"
I gestured desperately to the crates, shout-whispering. "The dogs are ASLEEP!"
M paused, a look of complete disbelief sliding slowly across his face. "Are you kidding me?"
"NO, I'M NOT!" I knew I sounded ridiculous, but my biggest fear at that moment was that dogs would wake up and start their annoying quest to Must! Hump! Each! Other! NOW!

M simply stared at me, wondering who this crazyperson was and what had she, with her crazy eyes and flailing arms and shout-whisper, done with his wife? But HE hadn't been the one that had taken the dogs out one at a time at 6:30 a.m. that morning in work heels, hefting them back and forth, obsessively careful not to let the other dog know that I was holding his brother, otherwise a symphony of whines and barks and snorts would commence, and the whole house would be woken up and I was TRYING TO BE CONSIDERATE, OKAY? And then? HE hadn't been the one who had come home from work and had to help with homework and after-school snacks and engage in constant Brokeback Brothers break-ups while doing all of that.

And that's when I realized: I'm not sure I would have been cut out for raising siblings. Because siblings? Argue. And though they might not hump each other with the shameless glee of the canine variety of siblings - or: at all, even - they bicker and take things from each other and complain that "she won't stop TOUCHING ME!", and the whole idea of that is just stressful to me. And when they do argue, fuss and fight, you can't necessarily lock human siblings in separate crates and leave the house for a couple of hours. So there's that.

I also know this: in the moments when Gaucho and Bento forgot to annoy each other (and me in the process), there was this amazing sense of unity that sang from their bodies. From behind, they were the same shape, the same color, with the same curve of spine and cock of head. They lay together under the shade of the bright yellow bench in our backyard, their noses touching, their paws joined. It was clear: They weren't just friends - they were brothers. And that's when I knew that though the mothers I had inwardly tipped my hat to may spend their days "separating dogs", they also had the privilege of  witnessing the magic of heads joined over a board game, hands held running through sprinklers, locks of hair falling the same way over matching eyes.

I'll never see that with S - her head bent in conspiracy with a sister or brother; her arm consoling, her laugh knowing. And though sometimes, when I have little revelations like this, it makes me just a little sad, I also know that we have something incredibly special, too. Something that days spent separating dogs might just take away from. So, in reverence of that, I am careful not to wish for what never will be, and to hold fast and gratefully to what is.

Royal Pains in my Seat

by Cathy

One night last week, Bella prepared her evening snack as usual and sat down at the kitchen table to eat it. This time, however, she sat in Ari's chair. We have designated chairs at our kitchen table for dinner and ever since the girls were old enough to sit in a chair with their booster seats, they each sat in their assigned chair of choice.

On this night, as Bella was happily chomping on her Cheerios and me on my Honeycomb (what can I say? It brings back my childhood memories) Ari strolled into the kitchen to get some water. And so it began.

"Bella! Why are you sitting in my seat?!"
"Because mommy is sitting in mine," she pointed over at me, my left cheek stuffed with those huge Honeycomb wheels.
"Bella!! I don't want you to sit in my seat!"
Silence.
"Mommy! Bella is sitting in my seat!"
"Honey, it's okay. She's just having her snack. She'll be almost done."
"But I want to sit there?"
"Now? But you're not eating."
"I still want to sit there."
"Honey, just let her finish and she'll get up, okay?"
"NOOOOOOO!"

On this went until I moved out of Bella's seat so she can sit there and free up Ari's seat. But Bella didn't budge.
"She has to learn that she can't always get what she wants."

Hmph. Here was the student teaching the master. She had a good point. So we both ignored her until she stomped off and came back with this note, which she prodded into our personal face space and proceeded to then tape to her chair after Bella got up:

She wrote this same thing three different times, spelling it three different ways. And if you'll notice, she taped up ALL THREE versions on each side of her chair. She clearly marked her territory and claimed her stake at the kitchen table, that's for dang sure.

So that evening, Bella decided to do the same, but she one-upped her by simply just putting her nickname, Queen Isabella, on her chair, in the fanciest font she could find:

And Ari, in true Leo fashion and never wanting to be outdone, had her papi help her create the following to add to her chair, but first, not without changing her mind and allowing someone to sit in her chair for an allotted period of time:

The 30 minute restriction overpowers the throne name

So all these little scraps of paper are still taped to these two chairs in our kitchen, lest anyone forgets which chair they're about to plop their own seat on.

See? Some ground rules are always needed...even when you think you'll never need them.