Growing up I idolized my sister. I would eagerly count down the days until she visited and then hover outside her closed bedroom door in the morning, waiting impatiently for her to wake up. When I was little I would savor the sticks of gum she casually handed me, eating them a third at a time, reveling in the way they made me feel so grown up, so sophisticated. Eventually the gum became coffee, and the coffee became wine, but whatever it was, she knew all about the adult things in life, and I wanted to be just like her. It took me well into my adult life to realize I didn’t like make-up, because she would always send me the latest make-up or face cream that she was into, and I would store it away, saving it long past the expiration date because I couldn’t bear to part with something that came from her, or using it in teensy tiny little bits so that I could be just like her. 

So, imagine my surprise when Lucy was born and I realized that the primary task of Lucy and Logan’s early siblinghood was going to be Helping Her Survive It.  Sure, granted, there are some critical differences. My sister and I never lived in the same state because she lived in Georgia with her mother, so time together was a scarcer resource than it is for most siblings. Also, she is 12 years older which means that by the time I came along her impulse control was pretty well developed. Plus, she and I both avoid conflict of any kind like the plague, so I don’t think we’ve ever actually had a fight, or even an open disagreement.

Needless to say, nothing about my own experience as a sibling prepared me for raising siblings 2 1/2 years apart. When I was pregnant with Lucy, Logan was over the moon with excitement. Every day he would ask to take out the doppler and listen to her heartbeat. He would lay his hands on my belly and say: “Come out, Lucy, we are ready to meet you!” We bought him all the books we could find on adjusting to a new sibling, and told him over and over again the story of what the expect when it was time for her come. He picked out a special present for her to bring him when she got here, and he would gently remind her in my belly not to forget his truck, his Jeep, and his hair clip. Everybody kept asking us if he was ready, and I would say “He’s excited, but I’m sure he has no idea what is coming.” How could he? We didn’t either, and he was only two.

When he came to the hospital to meet her for the first time it was all very anticlimactic. He took one curious glance at her, lying there in my arms, and then he spotted the juice box on my tray, noticed that it clearly had a lot more to offer, and started in begging us for that. Once we brought her home though, Logan’s excitement returned full force. Every time he saw her he would exclaim: “Lucy! We are so glad you are here!” and run to crush her with his chubby little body, or forcefully turn her head so she could see him better, or “hand” her a big, hard toy right on top of her face. Thus began a vicious cycle where he would accidentally hurt her with his exuberance and then he would feel so bad for doing so that he would lash out and intentionally hurt her again. I am pretty sure this is a cycle we all go through at some point as humans, accidentally hurting one another and then doing it again because their tears or yelling are too hard to hear and anger is easier to feel than guilt or shame. Plus, underneath his excitement there were likely some big and very justified feelings about being displaced and having to share his moms’ previously undivided attention. Still, I was totally unprepared both for the intensive monitoring that would be required to keep a little sister alive, and for the rage I would feel watching him hurt her.

It was hard to have compassion for Logan and remember that he himself was a tiny human being just trying to figure out his new world and his place it in, when compared to his even tinier new sister, he suddenly seemed so very big and dangerous. I wanted so badly to protect her, and struggled to reconcile the soft, safe, cuddly newborn world we had been able to raise Logan in with the chaotic, whirlwind of a world our daughter had entered into. Instead of lullabies and tummy time, she spent most of her infancy strapped to our back to keep her out of harm’s way, listening to the sound track of all the negotiating, limit setting, and let’s be honest- yelling- that comes along with raising a 2-3 year old. At 10 months old, not only can Lucy say “No, no, no,” while emphatically shaking her head back and forth, but she’s heard us use 1,2,3 magic to get Logan to comply with a direction so many times that when she hears someone say “one” she will helpfully offer up “do!” (aka, “two”) right after.

Cari, whose sister is only 18 months younger, assures me that all of this is a normal, healthy part of sibling hood. The older one puts the little one in their place and pushes them around a bit, while the little one learns both to fight back and to tattle with the best of them. And boy oh boy, did Lucy learn these little sister moves quickly. At seven weeks old, not yet even able to roll over,  when Logan started to lay on top of her, Lucy took both arms and shoved him right off of her. Shortly thereafter, she learned to look directly at us and shriek or cry emphatically if he so much as came near her in a manner she didn’t care for.

If we ever left them alone in a room together, inevitably we would hear Lucy’s loud siren wail and come back to find Logan standing over her looking guilty but steadfastly maintaining his innocence. “What happened, Logan?” we would ask. “I didn’t do anything!” he insisted.

We quickly learned a trick for uncovering the truth. Although he would maintain he had no idea why she was crying if we asked him what happened, if we asked him to apologize to his sister, he would turn to her and say “Sorry!” in an accusing tone of voice. “For what?” we would ask. “For hitting/kicking/biting/”snatching”/”bopping”/sitting on you,” he would reply, a hint of remorse in his voice.

And then, just when I started to fear that this might be the extent of their relationship,; that we had had a second child only to spend our days constantly making our oldest feel bad for hurting his sister and our youngest feel the world was not a safe place, light broke through. Gradually, slowly, yet somehow all at once, the magic happened. And it’s parenting magic, which is to say that it’s eight parts exasperation and exhaustion to two parts the purest, deepest joy you’ve ever known.Somehow, no matter what the laws of mathematics might say, the two will always be greater than the eight. Lucy learned to crawl, and all of a sudden just as often as we were putting Logan on time out for pushing her over or “bopping” her on the head, we were as likely to find them both giggling in a game of hide and seek or peek-a-boo. He would crawl ahead of her, hiding behind walls and then popping out and surprising her as she crawled happily along behind him. Lucy reaches her arms out for him when she sees him now, and when he brushes his teeth she insists on having her own toothbrush and mimicking the “ahhh” sound he makes while he opens wide.

Just last night, while we were getting the kids ready for their bath, I was changing Lucy’s diaper and Logan walked up, saw that she had a diaper rash, and said: “Poor, poor Lucy, that looks like it hurts!” Then, he ran and brought me some diaper cream and insisted I put it on so her bum-bum didn’t hurt. Next, I put her down and he ran into the bathroom while she crawled happily along behind him. Logan slammed the door to keep her out, accidentally slamming it  against her forehead, and she started screaming, which caused him to cover his ears and yell: “Stop it Goo!” (his pet name for her) loudly right in her face. Then, while I picked her up to comfort her she peed all over me. Logan dissolved in giggles, delighted at this turn of events, which quickly turned her tears to giggles, but then he slipped in her puddle of pee and he became the one who was sobbing. A few minutes later I finally got both of them and my pee-soaked self into the tub, only to find her shrieking again in the split second I turned my back to grab the soap, and Logan was insisting: “I didn’t bite her, my teeth just accidentally bumped into her face!”

This action packed five minutes sums up just about every five minutes around here these days. It is what it means to have siblings two years apart, I suppose. They will protect each other and hurt each other and love each other and frustrate each other, in an endless cycle, most likely for the rest of their lives. It amazes me to watch them, to see this early relationship grow and imagine all the lessons it will teach them about how to say you are sorry and how to make up; how to fight and forgive and stand up for yourself and move on. All of these are things it took me well into adulthood to figure out how to do well, and I am glad they will have each other to practice with.

After I closed the door to the kid’s room, having tucked them safely in, Lucy began to cry. Logan’s little voice floated under the door: “What’s wrong, Goo? You miss Mama? It’s ok, don’t worry.” I assumed he was going to barge out and come get us, brotherly protection in it’s own right, but instead he began to softly sing: “Goodnight, sleep tight, tomorrow day… Sweet dreams, good night!” As I stood at there door, my ear pressed against it, he hummed softly while they drifted off to sleep and it was rare, glorious perfection.