Vol. 43 - Them

On brothers and sisters

There’s a little playground behind our kids’ daycare where they spend most of their time during the day.

As each of the daycare’s groups are segregated by age, tall chain-link fences separate the areas where my son (four-and-a-half) and my daughter (one-and-a-half) play. But the two see each other throughout the day and, according to my son, even occasionally get to cross over to the other side for a brief playdate.

But the other day, when Emily and I went to pick them up and the gate between the two areas was open, our baby darted past us and ran straight into the arms of her big brother, who picked her up and squeezed her as the two of them spun in a circle, both screaming with laughter.

And in that moment, I had a realization; very soon, my kids are going to have a relationship that is completely independent of their parents.

Sure, right now they both need us more than almost anything in the world. And right now is a phase I love deeply and one I’ll miss when it’s gone. Also, considering our daughter doesn’t yet speak, there’s no way she can communicate with beyond laughs and tantrums, smiles and frowns, all of which are a bit easier for Emily and me to interpret than it is for our son.

Someday soon, they’ll have in-jokes that Emily and I don’t understand, passions that we didn’t turn them on to, plans they make wholly without our input.

There will be road trips and nights out, interpersonal drama that mom and dad just wouldn’t understand, boy and girl trouble, heartbreaks, triumphs, and trials and tribulations that only an older brother or a younger sister could understand.

In between that time and this, there will no doubt be rough patches; fights over toys or power struggles for mom or dad’s attention. But somewhere down the line, they’ll need each other in a way that is wholly different than the way they need their mom and dad. And now, just a year-and-a-half into their relationship with one another, Emily and I are watching the foundations of that relationship being built in real time.

And I think that’s just wonderful.