Skipper scootches, Dutch sulks.
I'm so sorry - I should have made it clear that I was just back from a wonderful, yummy, cozy family Thanksgiving. No, really! It was lovely. I was super-lazy and let my wonderful family members feed me and clean up after me and play with my kids. Dutch loved every second of it, and scored a much-beloved Barbie coloring book out of the event. Skipper loved flirting with everyone in sight.
Today we realized something important about Dutch. She's been pretty awful for the last month or so, which we've been blaming on all sorts of things- Skipper's birth, our move, bad weather, our stress levels, etc. Today we kind of put it all together, FINALLY, and realized that what's happening here is more than that - it's a major shift in Dutch's life. She has officially left behind her status as Little and Cute. This has been accelerated by her hugeosity and her new glasses, which make her look older than she is, but she was getting there anyway. She's entered a sort of a preview of adolescence, a transition from small-childhood to grade-school-childhood.
This transition is made more difficult by the fact that Skipper has just arrived in small-childhood and the privileges thereof. Skipper is overwhelmingly Little and Cute right now, and she gets all sorts of positive attention from strangers, as well as from Cook and me. She has also just begun commando-crawling, and is starting to get into Dutch's Stuff. None of the annoying things she does are her fault, and everybody forgives her every transgression. This looks wildly unfair to Dutch, and it doesn't help to point out to her that she got all the same privileges when she was Little and Cute. It also doesn't help that her new maturity and responsibility come with new privileges, because they don't look to her like adequate compensation. I'm not sure they really ARE adequate compensation, honestly.
Cook and I are now trying to redirect our energy* toward coming up with ways to make child-middle-age look better to Dutch - some way to recognize and honor her status as a Big Kid in a way that makes sense to all of us. Ideas would be very welcome.
*from activities such as checking how much it would cost to mail a 50-pound package containing a live animal to Ecuador. Or looking into the minimum age limit for boarding schools. That sort of thing.
Today we realized something important about Dutch. She's been pretty awful for the last month or so, which we've been blaming on all sorts of things- Skipper's birth, our move, bad weather, our stress levels, etc. Today we kind of put it all together, FINALLY, and realized that what's happening here is more than that - it's a major shift in Dutch's life. She has officially left behind her status as Little and Cute. This has been accelerated by her hugeosity and her new glasses, which make her look older than she is, but she was getting there anyway. She's entered a sort of a preview of adolescence, a transition from small-childhood to grade-school-childhood.
This transition is made more difficult by the fact that Skipper has just arrived in small-childhood and the privileges thereof. Skipper is overwhelmingly Little and Cute right now, and she gets all sorts of positive attention from strangers, as well as from Cook and me. She has also just begun commando-crawling, and is starting to get into Dutch's Stuff. None of the annoying things she does are her fault, and everybody forgives her every transgression. This looks wildly unfair to Dutch, and it doesn't help to point out to her that she got all the same privileges when she was Little and Cute. It also doesn't help that her new maturity and responsibility come with new privileges, because they don't look to her like adequate compensation. I'm not sure they really ARE adequate compensation, honestly.
Cook and I are now trying to redirect our energy* toward coming up with ways to make child-middle-age look better to Dutch - some way to recognize and honor her status as a Big Kid in a way that makes sense to all of us. Ideas would be very welcome.
*from activities such as checking how much it would cost to mail a 50-pound package containing a live animal to Ecuador. Or looking into the minimum age limit for boarding schools. That sort of thing.
Comments
I don't want a visit from Skipper. Escorted, yes. Solo, no.
By contrast, I VERILY want a visit from Dutchess.
Any time.
On my nickel.
Love,
Grandan
No Really.