Iain and Ryan

For some reason, Iain has been getting a little stressed out with his brother. It figures doesn’t it? After I wrote about all the brotherly love in our house, it put the whammy on the good vibes and shook things up a bit. Iain even went so far as to ask me if he could live with his Nana and Chief (my parents) to get away from Ryan. My response to that was that I HAD lived with those people and, believe it or not, he was better off with us no matter how annoying Ryan was. What is going to happen though is this – when things get stressful, Iain can go to my mom’s and hang out for a little while and take a break from being a big brother. I’m a big sister and remember vividly what it was like to have to cater to my younger sibling all the time. Eventually those things are what made our relationship rough so I want to avoid that with my boys.

When my sister and I were little, 3 and 7, my mom had a job at a bank and my sister and I went to daycare. It was actually right across the street from our house and can I tell you how sad I was daily when we were outside playing and I could see my home? Oh, how I wanted to be there. The bathrooms at our daycare didn’t have doors on the stalls so I refused to go to the bathroom while I was there. Anyway, my sister was at daycare all day because obviously she wasn’t in school yet, and her favorite teacher was Ms. Hill. Well, Ms. Hill left not too long after I got to daycare and when she left, my sister would cry and cry and cry until they came and got me and I had to hang out in the baby room until my mom came to get us. It would seriously piss me off that I never got to play with my friends or I might be just getting into a game and here “they” would come to get me. I was so glad when my mom quit and stayed home with us. I get what it’s like to feel like you have to be more grown up than the younger sibling.

Iain is very similar in the way he treats Ryan and while I’ve been recognizing it as super duper sweet, it’s actually been building up resentment in Iain’s heart. Now I have to step in and take action. There is genuine sweetness in their relationship, that much I do know. They both love and support each other in ways that I couldn’t fathom at their age. But I’m beginning to recognize the difference and can see where Iain is having trouble with Ryan. So today, Iain is going to Nana’s for a couple of hours and Ryan and I are going to do something together. Somedays we’ll switch and give Ryan time at Nana’s. We’re lucky to live so close and things with Sean’s job could move us so we need to take advantage of the closeness while we can.

We had a great kid mosh with some new friends on Monday. They traveled here and stayed for a while and my boys just had an absolute ball. More times like those will go a long way to protect their relationship, too, when there are other people besides each other to play with. One of Iain’s friends from school is coming over in a couple of weeks and he’s really looking forward to that.

I’m not sure what my posting schedule’s going to be like over the holiday so, if I don’t post anything during it, I’ll see you on the flipside. Please have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!