sibling love

When I was pregnant the second time around, I was so nervous about having more than one child and being able to be there for both of them physically and mentally. I'm sure I'm not alone in the thinking "How can I love another little person as much as I already love my first little person?" Did I have that much love to even go around? I'd like to think this is a typical question a parent has when gearing up for baby numero 2. My second baby came and my heart exploded a second time with the love for the little person brought into my world. Then came numero 3 and all those same worries came flooding back, now I have two already, how in the world can I love a third as much?! Well, he's here and he's loved and loved and loved. Just like the two before him. Turns out I do have enough love to go around.

One of my favorite things watching these three grow together is witnessing the love between them. The oldest has two little ones to love, the middle has a big one and a little one to love and the little guy has two big sisters to love. They each gain a different perspective to living and loving within their family. The dynamics they bring to the table are all very different but with the same end goal, love your siblings. But with loving also comes the sibling torment, the fighting and disagreeing.

It's not always easy, I remember growing up with my younger brother and thinking for sure that no two people could be more different. That didn't mean I didn't love him, it just meant we had different interests and when are worlds overlapped naturally there would be struggle. I wanted to read all day and he was very active always running and playing. On long car rides my dad would threaten to turn the car around if we didn't stop annoying one another. And I remember a particular incident where I threw my glass of water in his face at dinner because he wouldn't stop jabbing at me. Just the water, I held onto the glass.

But I also have a ton of memories of playing together at the beach, going to his soccer games in high school and partying with him on his 21st birthday. Our baby brother came into our world and threw a whole new dimension at us and we figured it out, we tried to torment him as much as possible but seeing how we are 17 and 15 years older than him, it didn't seem as appropriate. All three of us are different, we bring different strengths and weaknesses to our lives, but for the most part, we're present and know that we have one another too. Our love for one another is will always be.

 
That's what I love about my own three. They love each other, they want to play, read to, color with, run around with one another when they can and want to. Do they always want to? Of course not. Are they always in sync with the other? Not a chance? They fight, they don't share sometimes, they chase each other when they don't want to be chased. But at the end of the day, when the tears have dried, the sun will come back out, the moon and stars will shine above their beautiful heads and they will realize that through it all they have one another and that they are loved.