Mutual admiration society

I think any mother with more than one child will tell you that one of life's greatest joys is seeing her children truly enjoy one another. I am so blessed that my kids seem to really like each other.

The first thing in the morning, when Jack hears that Violet and I are awake, he comes running into my room. I LOVE hearing Violet's little voice say, "Morning!" He instantly starts gushing how much he loves both me and her with various exclamations of admiration about how beautiful or clever his sister is.

"Oh, you are so cute! You are my favorite baby! Cutie girl!"

His current nickname for Violet is "Boo-key" (from Baby to Bakey to Boo-key and then sometimes Boo-ker). He calls her that so often that I sometimes think she thinks that's one of her real names, because she says it too.

"Boo-key! I love you!" he says about twenty times in the first five minutes of seeing her, while she looks at him with an expression of complete adoration.

It is a wonderful way to start the day.

Throughout the day, he will frequently express proud wonder at all the things that Violet has learned.

"Wow! She has a lot of words for such a little baby!"

"She is really strong for being only one!"

When Violet was first born, Tom used to say that she had "snapping brown eyes." Jack has adopted and adapted that phrase, and now he constantly tells her, "Look at your brown snappy eyes! Do you have brown snappy eyes?"

It's so fun when they are in the car together, because they will both act silly and copy the other one and crack themselves up. One of my favorite things, though, is when we are in the car and it's close to the time when Violet should take a nap. She fights it in much the same way her brother always did (and still does). She would rather stay awake and play with him. So Jack pretends to fall asleep in his car seat so that she will copy him. And she does. She closes her eyes and leans her head to the side as if she's asleep, but every few seconds will open one eye to peek to see if he actually is awake.

Yesterday, during this little exercise, I kept hearing her call, "Jack-Jack! Jack-Jack!" to try to get him to "wake up." Sometimes she reaches over to him and tries to tickle him while saying, "Tickle tickle tickle!" Jack is so good and rarely lets her make him laugh, although sometimes I know he wants to. If she's tired enough, she will then give up and fall asleep for real. Yesterday, she napped for about an hour, all thanks to Jack. It was awesome.

She learns so much from him every day. She always wants to do what he is doing and is so interested in everything that interests him. He is constantly teaching her new words and how to do new things. Of course, we have to always make sure that what she is learning is appropriate. She has lately been telling us that she wants to use the toilet, but unfortunately, she wants to pee standing up like her brother. Oops.

I know it isn't always going to be easy going with my two. Indeed, some of the squabbling over toys and other "resources" (i.e., Mommy) began several months ago. But even when they quarrel, Jack loves her so much.

A few days ago, they were doing their standard fight when they see me walk into the room. Violet will usually exclaim, "Mommy!" and start running to me. Knowing that she is going to want to nurse right away, Jack will start fussing and run to me too. Of course he always gets to me first, which, needless to say, upsets his sister. She'll come over to us and start trying to pull him off me. If he is sitting on my lap, she'll climb over him and try to sit between him and me. This of course starts Jack complaining. Even if Tom takes her for a few minutes so that I can give Jack some one on one attention, it naturally always has to end at some point and I have to attend to Violet. And no matter how long his "turn" is, Jack protests mightily when it is over.

"It's not fair!" he yells. "She always gets you! My turn wasn't long enough! Violet is not being nice to me! I feel like she doesn't love me, because she's not letting me have you."

And on and on. It is enormously tiresome.

After one particularly vituperative session of this from him, I asked him, "Do you want us to find another family for Violet so that you always have me all to yourself?"

He was horrified.

"NO! She's MY sister! She's part of our family!"

I obviously can't play that card too often, because there may be a day that he calls my bluff and says, "Yeah! Let's get rid of her!" But right now, when he imagines the future, he and Violet are always together. He says that he wants them to both be doctors and work in the same office. Just this morning, he told me that when he grows up, he wants to be neighbors with his sister.

"Then our kids can play together!"

I can attest, there is truly nothing better.