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Love Them Both But ...
My sister got me thinking the other day about my relationship with my children.
On an Internet posting she made in one of those “Tell me xx number of things about yourself” (this one was for the “25 Random Things About Me” that’s going around Facebook), she wrote “I am madly in love with my son, Tony, who is 2 - and I’m OK admitting it.”
She followed it with “My daughter, Lily, makes me crazy, yet I recognize that she is a mini-me and I adore her.”
My sister’s situation sounds like mine. My daughter, Maya, who is also 2 - (born just two days before Tony) is my sunshine. She makes me laugh and smile all the time, and, at least for now, she doesn’t have much of an attitude.
My 5-year-old son, on the other hand, can drive me bonkers. No one pushes my buttons the way he does.
He is me.
Well, not completely, but I definitely believe that his bad qualities are the same as my bad qualities. We are both stubborn. We can be grouchy or sometimes just mean (but usually only to people we love, which makes no sense, I know) and we hold grudges. We both can throw a really good temper tantrum, too. Just ask my husband.
(Of course, Guillermo has plenty of good qualities, too, and he makes me laugh and smile, too. He is a lot of fun. He is creative and silly and curious. And, he shows that he values our time and our family time together.)
My sister said that accepting her feelings about her children has been a struggle, but she says she realizes it’s OK to feel the way she does. I know she loves both of them dearly, just as I love both of my kids dearly, even if one makes me feel a little insane at times.
Natalie appears Sundays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Natalie at her blog A Day at the Park.
Natalie Gott
Natalie is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Sunday.
Natalie is a stay-at-home mom in Carrboro to castle- and super hero-loving Guillermo, 5, and puzzle- and big brother-adoring Maya, 2. Natalie was a wire service reporter for nine years, but stopped working after Maya was born in 2006. Most mornings you can now find her at the playgrounds chasing her kids, who frequently are wearing superhero capes. Natalie grew up in Iowa and Peoria, Ill. After college, she lived in St. Louis, Baton Rouge, La.,and Austin, Texas. In 2005, she and her husband moved to North Carolina and she proudly sings every word to the "It's Carrboro" rap. Natalie loves politics, reggae and grocery stores and readily admits she wastes too much time reading celebrity gossip, but just can't stop herself.
Comments
People don't expect chemistry to come into play with their kids i.e. connecting more with one than another, or just in different ways, but it does! The neat thing with my four girls, is that I have such different, almost conflicting layers of my personality, and each of the girls represents one of those layers. They are all so different, yet I relate so much to each of them in different ways. It's probably the same for most people, sometimes it's hard to admit the most annoying parts of them are us as well. :-)
I agree with lilybug-- I have different relationships with each of my children. Some I connect with because we're so much alike. Others I find even more fascinating because they are different.
On the other hand, the ones like me have my same weaknesses, and that sometimes makes the issue escalate. And for the ones less like me, I have to make sure I find a way to gel with them so we don't constantly bypass each other.