Friday, March 12, 2010

"Ooh Jealousy"

I have had Natalie Merchant's song 'Jealousy' stuck in my brain for a couple days due to Morgan's new found feelings of what is his is his and what is anybody elses is his too! Phew...

Poor little guy is extremely jealous of Lily. If we dare give Lily any of his toys to look at he runs up and tries to take it away from her. This behavior is even more distinct if we try to read to Lily or show her a book. We encourage him to share with her or join in on the reading time and when he does we highly praise him for it. I don't think being negative about this right now will do much good, in fact I think it will escalate problems so we are going to take it easy for now until his verbal communication skills grow.

This morning the most adorable little sequence of events occured while we were all cuddling in bed after Steve left for work. I had them both lined up on the pillows with the covers over all of us and Lily's binky fell out.  She looked at Morgan and saw he had one of her binkies (only because we couldn't find his) and so she reached over and snatched it out of his mouth and put it in hers. This is probably the worst thing you could do to Morgan first thing in the morning. He is unfortunately very attached to the binky at this point. Amazingly all he did was furrow his eyebrows, reach over to Lily and grab it back out of her mouth and plopped it right back into his. Lily looked back at him without missing a beat and snatched it right back. Let this scenario repeat about 2 more times and then I felt bad so I found her lost binky and gave it to her. After they both had their binkies and everything was right in the world again, well as right as it can be for a toddler with a baby sister, Morgan reached over and patted her hand and she grabbed it and studied it just like she does ours. Morgan was so sweet and let her examine it thoroughly until she was done, they even held hands for a bit. I hope these are the sweet innocent moments I remember later in life. I cherish them so much when I am privileged to witness them right before my very eyes.

For the most part Lily seems to be like one of the dogs that Morgan occasionally pays attention to during his self absorbed playing. He will go up to her, pat her on the head and if she cries he will try to give her a binky or find a bottle and try to give it to her too. (Oh my melting heart..) It's just been the past week that he really has started acknowledging her as an actual person and not just any person, but one that he has to compete for attention with and protect his toys from. Of course like in my story above there is also this very tender side where he will come up and offer his toys to her or even kiss her on her mouth or hug her or...yeah.

I would say a good 90% of Lily's day is spent watching Morgan. He is free live-in entertainment for her. If he is in the room that is all she cares about. It is so funny. She gets so excited when he runs around screeching and chattering. Today Lily laughed out loud at something he did and he saw her laugh and it made him laugh right back at her.

I guess this is just the beginning. If I start to think too far ahead I start to panic a little. Soon she will be walking and talking and they will be sharing their childhood with one another which inlcudes fighting, sharing, love, discipline, etc. It's very hard to wrap my head around all of it and wonder how am I going to handle this huge responsibility to ensure that later in life they will be friends and close siblings and not alienated from one another. Ugh. This is when I remind myself to stick with the present and trust that everything will work out.

On a different note, have I mentioned I am in love with the upstairs?! Every day is filled with so much fun now. If Morgan had his way we would never go downstairs for anything! I feel incredibly thankful and blessed for my amazing family and home.

Randomness...


Eskimo Kiss

Eskimo Kiss

"Look what I can do!"

Lily

Love

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