Sibling Love

The look on Claytons face when he hears his baby sisters cries for the first time in a morning is priceless. He spins his head around looking for her, and calls her name to the best of his ability ("Alsh, Alsh"). It's so nice to see the admiration he has for her and that's exactly what we hoped for as parents to siblings. We were worried that jealousy would creep in after the birth of Alice and feared how it might affect the household dynamics as we adapted to being a family of 4 but so far things have been great. Clayton dotes on his baby sister and it melts my heart to see. Sometimes, when our baby girl is sat in her bouncer and gets upset, I choose not to intervene at first if I see that her big brothers attention has been captured by it. He will stop what he his doing, toddle over and stroke her head in an attempt to soothe his sisters crying. If that doesn't work he might cuddle her, rest his head on hers (what he think's is a kiss) or he will fetch her dummy and put it into her wailing mouth. In truth, he rarely succeeds in calming her down but it's amazing that at his young age he is keen to help.

Big brother is due to turn 17 months old in a matter of days and baby sister will turn 3 months a few days later. I'm well aware that the harmony is unlikely to last but I'm enjoying it whilst it does and hope that even when it stops, it returns in later life. Those moments of friendship and displays of sibling love is the exact reason we opted to have a second child so quickly after our son came along. I look forward to future days when they play together, help eachother and grow up to become friends. I look forward to days when they can delight in having someone to share a special moment with, and selfishly... I look forward embarrassing them and showing photos like these to older versions of themselves. For now though, I'm soaking the love up, watching them learn that they have someone caring for them and someone to care about other then their parents.

It's our job as parents to make sure they continue to learn how to love one another as they grow older. I am ever grateful of my wifes decision to sacrifice her right to a normal, adult working life and devote all of her time to our children. She grew up in a solid family environment and has a close relationship with her own brother and I'm hoping that her being a full time Mother will give her the time required to transfer that outlook into the make up of our children.