Polar Opposites

I am not going to lie...I always felt like I was going to have one girl and one boy. When I found out that Val, our second child, was a girl I was honestly a little sad. I knew we were going to have only two children, and deep down I was hoping that we would have one of each sex. I was afraid that our two daughters would be so similar and we would have the same experiences with each of them as they grew up. By the hammer of Thor (a little Anchorman reference) I was wrong!

M & Val couldn't be more different. I wrote a post about their differences a few months ago, but since then Val has developed this little spitfire independent personality that is totally new to me as a mom. I was used to having the quiet child, the introvert, who sat and observed everyone around her and shied away from anyone besides me and my husband. You could read books to M for hours if you wanted. She  would sit and watch an entire movie without moving. She can still to this day play by herself very quietly in the playroom - the point where I have to call in there every few minutes and say "M? Are you ok in there?" because she was is quiet.

Enter Val...

Val throws food on the floor.
Val likes to smack people, and the pooch.
Val is a screamer - and not just yelling, I am talking head-turning-ear-piercing screeching during the middle of dinner in a restaurant.
Val likes to go in the toy bins in the playroom and throw everything from the bin on the floor. And then move to the next bin and repeat.
Val likes to climb...on everything.
Val LOVES to pull her sisters hair. Her sister does not like it as much as Val does.
If Val doesn't like the book you are reading, she will smack that book out of your hands.

Val likes to test her parent's patience. She knows what the word "no" means, but likes to act like she doesn't.

I have this daily interaction with her...whether it is about the dog's food, or smacking her sister, or trying to pull down the gate at the bottom of the stairs...

Me: Val, no! Don't you crawl over to pooch's food.
Val crawls over to the bowl at the speed of light (this kid is FAST when she wants to be - and yes, I pick her up and move her away, many times, but Mama has to make dinner at some point!)
Me: Don't you stick your hand in the pooch's water.
Val looks at me, with the biggest grin ever on her adorable face, with hand hovered above the water bowl.
Me: No! Don't you do it Val.
Val raises her eyebrows and grins even wider, as she lowers her hand just a bit, still hovering over the actual water in the bowl.
Me: No! Mommy said no!
Val places her hand in the dog's water bowl and bursts out in laughter.

Val: 1

Who could resist that gapped tooth smile?

Mommy: 0

But oh my God - Val is the greatest too. She will get me so fired up one second, and the next she is crawling over to me and jumping in my arms, and letting me kiss her chubby cheeks and tickle her belly. I just want to eat her up!

She is so unbelievably happy-go-lucky. If M stumbles or falls it is immediate tears (most of the time fake ones) no matter what the severity of the fall (I am talking like tripping over a toy on the floor). If Val stumbles she laughs and she gets right back up and continues to do something that she probably isn't supposed to be doing.

I love that about her.

I know Val is going to be the daughter that gets into trouble. I know she is going to be the bruiser of the two...the instigator. But I hope that whenever Val does fall down as she gets older that she will still have that happy-go-lucky attitude, and laugh it off and move on.

She seems to follow Pete the Cats mantra - no matter what you step in, just keep walking along and singing your song, because it's all good.

She doesn't get that from me :)

A Tale of Two Sisters: A Blossoming Love

(No, this is not the synopsis for a Lifetime Movie about two sisters, separated at birth and raised on opposite sides of the "tracks" who are reunited after 30 years when one sisters child needs a bone marrow transplant and she can't give it to her child because she has some rare disease so her FBI husband discovers she has an identical twin living down the road...blah blah blah)

I've talked about M's distant love for Val before on the blog...when Val was born (almost 8 months ago) M wanted nothing to do with her. I am talking she would not even enter the same room. Slowly she learned to live with sweet Val gal, as she realized Val was here to stay. M would touch her hand and giggle or give her a kiss on the head and run away. We finally got them to take a photo together, although the first time M gave us about 5 seconds before she pushed Val away. Now I can actually get them to sit next to each other for a few minutes, and it warms my heart that M is growing to love her little sister.

Holding hands in their "warm-up suits" as my dad calls them

Whenever we go out as a group M will say to people, "that's Val. She's my sister. She loves me." Followed by something like "she's so little and cute" or "Val's so silly."

Val thinks M is the most amazing thing on earth. She could sit for hours and just watch M do what she does: run around the house while yelping, doing a silly dance, you name it, it is pure entertainment for Val. Whenever they are within arms reach of each other Val immediately reaches out for M's tight boingy curls and gets her hand all stuck in there and laughs. Or she just reaches out to touch M's face...this M is still not a big fan of.

When Val happens to reach out for M's hand, M will always linger a little bit before pulling away. She will say something like "Aw, Val loves me. She wants to hold my hand," and it just melts my heart to see the two of them showing that sort of affection for each other.

But today M took it to a whole other level, one that brought tears to my eyes.

As we were descending the stairs, fully dressed and ready for school, M somehow took a major tumble and hit her face on two stairs before landing on her back on the landing. I was walking behind her carrying Val, and immediately ran to her side. My first instinct was to scoop her up in my free arm, so I did and sat on the stairs with an obviously shaken little 3 year old in one arm and a drooling babe in my other. In true Val fashion, she reached out her little porky hand toward Marlo's hand and in wanting to avoid an accidental hair pull to add to the commotion I pulled her away. And then M did the funniest thing...

Through her tears she said to me "I want to hold Val's hand Mom! I want to hold Val's hand!" and she reached out her shaking hand and grabbed Val's hand in hers. I couldn't believe my eyes or ears as we sat there for what seemed like eternity (was probably 30 seconds in reality) and I watched my oldest find comfort in her baby sister's tiny little hand.

An hour later we were at the docs, M was examined and they found nothing major other than some scrapes and bruising by her eye. After a donut (for her) and some bacon (for me :) from Whole Foods she is back to her normal self and resting at home.

So while it was a hectic morning, there was definitely a moment in there that I will treasure forever.

A Tale of Two Sisters

I did my best to prepare M for the arrival of Val this past summer. We read books about being an older sister, and preparing for baby. I talked about her "baby sister" in my belly all the time. She would pay attention, but didn't really seem interested in the whole thing to be honest.

When Val arrived in August, and M came to see us in the hospital, it was a disastrous visit. M cried and said "I wanna go home!" over and over, and didn't even give us a chance to introduce her to her baby sister. We tried the second day we were in the hospital, with the same outcome.

We followed everyone's advice...

Don't hold the baby when the older sibling comes in the room.
Try to include the older sibling in everything you do with the new baby.
Give the older sibling gifts "from" the new sibling.
Yada yada yada...it was still a disaster, and broke my heart a little.

I have seen so many photos of older siblings holding their newborn sibling while visiting mom in the hospital. I wanted that photo! I wanted my sweet little girl to be excited that her new best friend was finally here, and be excited to help Mama out with changing diapers and giving her a bath. We were off to a rocky start, but hopefully things were going to quickly get better. Yeah, not so much.

When we brought Val home from the hospital, M was at school. M's excitement over Mommy and Daddy being home abruptly came to an end when she saw Val in the bassinet in the same room. She froze in horror and literally backed out of the room in silence. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with this alien Mommy and Daddy brought home. That thing was going back soon right? No such luck M.

this was the best we could do!

Over the next few days M warmed up to being in the same room with Val, but that was about it. If I was holding her, M would stay on the other side of the room from me. If I tried to get her to sit next to me, while holding Val, drama would ensue and screams of "no thanks Val!" would start. My heart broke when Val was just two weeks old, and we tried to get a photo of the two of them on the couch. M burst into tears and refused to sit next to the little lump that Val was...we tried to distract M and then dump Val on the couch next to her, with no such luck. See the photo on the right for the end result. High comedy, but seriously it broke my heart that M had such feelings toward helpless little Val.

the only other occasion where
I dressed them the same :)

Weeks went by and we finally got M to sit on the couch next to me and Val, and when she was around a month old, we actually got M to touch Val's hand. Of course she recoiled in disgust, but she touched Val's hand nonetheless. It was progress.

It wasn't until Val was about 7 weeks old that M finally took a photo while holding her. One of M's friends had asked to hold Val, and we took a photo of them together, and I guess M realized that Val wasn't so awful after all and actually asked to hold Val. Of course I teared up while I was rapidly firing off shots with my camera of this history making moment - until M let go of Val and almost dropped her.
Since that moment we have had about 3-4 other occasions where M has sat with Val for a photo, and each time I get a little choked up looking at my two babies together.

I will only hold this thing for 10 seconds

M still doesn't show much interest in Val, who is now 3 months old. If Val cries M will cover her ears and say "what's wrong with Val?" If they are sitting on the couch with Daddy, M might look over at Val and quickly touch her foot, and then act like she didn't do anything.

If I am putting M down for the night, I will lay Val in her bed next to her which of course leads to "No thanks Val! Mommy take her out of my bed!" but I will leave her in there and after a few minutes I will catch M looking over at her and smiling while I am reading to the two of them.

The other night I was lucky enough to see M lean over and give Val a kiss on the head while they were in bed together. M then looked up at me and said "Goodnight Mommy...Val stay in my bed?" I scurried out of the room and stood in the hallway peering through the crack of the door watching as M slowly reached out and touched Val's belly. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen. Of course 20 seconds later I hear "Mom! No thanks Val! You can take her now!"

She still won't help me change a diaper, or shows no interest in helping me get Val dressed, and will most times pitch a fit each time I put Val within a two foot radius of wherever she is, but I think she is warming up to her a little more each day.