It really is an incredible blessing to live in a neighborhood where many of the other households carry the same values as our family...I know that my girls are being watched and cared for...and they feel safe letting their children spend hours here...
(Let's just avoid telling them that I tend to sugar them up from time to time:)
Where I was actually headed with this post was the fact that when Sweetpea is not around, there is a sudden shift in the dynamics of "THE SISTERS"...
I will try to explain...
Sweetpea is a typical firstborn...if I MUST be completely honest, I would say she's just a mini-me...She just has all those firstborn tendencies...she's mothering, nurturing, a stickler for the rules, a tad bossy, and just plain OLDer than her siblings. These are not bad things...and there is a LOT more to her whole self than just those personality traits...
However, I find that because she possesses these traits so completely at times, they can often determine how her sisters relate not ony to her, but to each other...I don't think I necessarily notice this until she's been removed from the scene for a period of time.
I watched (and listened) this morning and my Peanut and Lil' Munchkin played doctor, dress up, beauty shop, polly pockets and held hands as they walked down the street to ask another neighbor for brown sugar so we could make cookies. Normally, these two just "take it" from big sis...she says "jump" they say, "how high and can I wear your flip flops?"
We had and still have a great relationship...back then, I pulled his hair until he did what I wanted and I made him play with Barbies...when I headed off to college, he bonded a lot with our younger sisters...although we all have good relationships with each other...each relationship is different...
***for the record, I do NOT pull his hair any longer...I can't vouch for the Barbie thing though:)
I guess I chalked it up to age differences...but watching my girls I'm realizing that it's more than that...I really think there is something to that whole birth order stuff...the way you are wired and how that affects how you relate to others....especially when a more dominant personality is taken out of the equation every once in awhile. I suppose I was that "dominant personality" to my siblings as well:)
It did my heart well to see them play...to watch Peanut be protective of her little sister and 'teach' her some things...instead of being taught by Sweetpea all the time...It was a good morning...eye opening and heart warming!
