On my kids’ accidental spacing
Apr 16, 2008 Parenting
I took Madison to her gym class yesterday and was able to shuck her off my lap and onto the mat because Noah gamely agreed to sit with the 4-year olds and participate in the activities. I guess this is more than she did last week with Brett. (He has a tougher time figuring out the gentle manipulation it takes to get a small, nervous child to do stuff.) Anyway. This time she sat out there and fiddled with Noah’s collar the way she fiddles with us (”I like the lumps,” she explains, meaning the places where seams meet). But she tried all the games and perked up to talk to the teacher about her birthday and to tell everyone that Noah is her brother, just in case they were getting any big ideas about co-opting him. (She was very pointed with one little girl who kept sidling up to sit on the other side of him.)
So they somersaulted and rolled and marched around with instruments and walked on the balance beam with beanbags on their heads. Noah gamely went along with it all, shooting me the evil eye — but with a grin — every now and then. The teacher, who is a very gentle and patient woman, thanked him for coming along and encouraged him to hang in there with his sister if he could handle it. (There are two more classes and Noah has agreed to go to ‘em both. Between you and me? I think he’s liking all the applause he’s getting from the grown-ups.)
I love my own brother and sister now but back when I was a kid I just resented them for getting in the way of my true destiny as an only child. Noah and Madison fight, bicker and drive each other crazy but there’s a great deal of tenderness between them, too. The night before last, Madison came by to give everyone hugs and kisses before heading off to brush her teeth and Noah turned to me and said, “Madison is so pretty, isn’t she?” Now I don’t remember ever gazing admiringly at my little brother. At least not at eleven. When I was eleven he was nine and it seems to me that if I gazed at him at all, it was with smoldering resentment.
Noah goes out of his way to help Madison (most of the time) and is willing to slow down and pay attention to her (most of the time) and worries about her well-bring (pretty much all of the time). He shares with her way more than my sister ever shared with me (are you listening, Erica, you mean old big sister?) right down to buying her candy at gym class instead of eating it all himself.
For her part, Madison revels in having an older brother. As evidenced by the gym class, she leans on him a lot. She is very proud to claim him and brags on him often to grown-ups who haven’t had the good fortune to meet him. “I have a brother named Noah,” she says. “He has a paper route!”
I was so sad about not having kids as close together as I wanted because I was afraid they would NOT be close and I think they are closer than they would be if Madison had arrived when Noah was four going on five like I planned. I know you can’t predict these things and that Noah’s natural tendency to be nurturing helps things along a whole lot so I’m not quite ready to tell everyone that every 7-years apart sibling pair is going to be perfect. Plus Noah hasn’t actually entered the teen years yet and I’m sure that changes things but so far, so good.
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Tags: child spacing, Erica, Madison, Noah, siblings