When Spencer
was a baby the idea of having any more children was insane to me. He was such a difficult and high-needs infant that I absolutely could not fathom ever putting myself/us through such torture ever again.
Then he started getting easier at about 18 months and by 2.5 he was a breeze. I could probably handle, like, 4 kids at once if they were similar to Spencer at 2.5. And then, because he was so easy, we kind of forgot how awful he was as a baby. When he turned 3 we decided that we could do it again. We reasoned that if we had a colicky baby that cried non-stop for 4 months, that would just be normal to us. And if the baby wasn't colicky it would be like taking care of the easiest baby in the world. We tried for 2 months and when I wasn't pregnant we kind of freaked out and thought that maybe we didn't want another baby afterall. So we took a 4 month break. And then, in April 2011....bam. Elliott.
The whole time that I was pregnant I worried about how Spencer would handle having a sibling. It had just been him for 4 years. Would he be jealous? Would he be resentful? Would he act out?
I have been really, really pleased that Spencer has never been anything but loving to Elliott and excited about having a brother. Even when he lost his primary caregiver when I was in the hospital for 2 weeks on 2 different occassions, he never blamed Elliott for that. Maybe he's too young to realize that it was Elliott's fault, but he really handled it like a champ. He had some behavioral issues back at the end of January and in February, but in hindsight, that had nothing to do with having a sibling. That was all a reaction to how incredibly stressed out his parents were about having a sick baby. If we had been that stressed out about anything (finances, a sick parent, etc) he would have responded in a similar manner.
Spencer is always coming up with ideas of things we can do for Elliott and ways that we can make him happy. He takes great joy in making Elliott smile and laugh. He also won't let me get rid of anything (broken crayon? scraps of paper?) because he wants to save them for when Elliott is older.
Yesterday Spencer read Elliott a book.
It was one of those alphabet books where each page has a letter and an item that starts with that letter. A- Apple, B-Bear, C-Cat, etc.
Spencer read it complete with silly faces and sound effects.
Elliott was loving it.
Not sure what is happening here.
Maybe B for blessing? Ha Ha
I believe this was Z for zipper. Spencer was zipping his face.
It looks like Spencer is biting him, but it was just pretend.
Then they took their first real double bath last night.
Elliott loves being just like his big brother.
I am under no false assumption that there won't be fights ahead. Little 2 year old Elliott is for sure going to knock over a tower or mess up an art project and piss his brother off, but I'm glad that at the core, Spencer really does love his brother. He is such a good role model for his little brother. I also think the age difference reduces sibling rivalry because they aren't going through the same things at the same time.
I might eat those words when they are 13 and 17 though.
6 comments:
This was such a sweet post. Spencer is just a lovely child. He probably can't help but be sweet to Elliott because E is just so adorable.
Bath times are the best when they can share it! Like I said before, four years is just the BEST age separation...Spencer was just ready for his little brother to join him. I had the same experience!
Darling! They will love having each other :) I'm thrilled that my boys have each other but now I'm feeling like cheech needs a sissy. Good lord.
I do believe that is "Baby's ABCs", no? Ellie was OBSESSED with that book for a while, so it was relegated to the diaper bag for public breakdown management. My guess is that the mystery pic is T for telephone or perhaps he's playing the xylophone on Elliott's face?
Either way, lovely post! We're flat out terrified of having another kid, which means it'll probably happen sooner rather than later.. ha.. ugh. If it does though, I hope Ellie is as wonderful of a big sister as Spencer is a big brother. :)
Awww, this is so sweet. What a wonderful big brother Spencer is. This is the kind of sibling relationship people dream about. I love how he was reading to Elliott. It's so sweet how the little ones seem to be so enamored by the older ones.
Love the pics of Spencer reading to his brother. I get a kick out of my students hugging and kissing their little siblings good-bye. The parents and I often joke, will it be like this in a few years? :)
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