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Friday, February 07, 2014

Birth Order

Sometimes I wonder how things might be different if Kayla wasn't the first born. If she and Lucas's birth order was reversed.

Would Joe and I have parented her any differently if we had been raising a typical child first? Would we have been a little disappointed at the delay in some of her milestones knowing how easily we would have watched Lucas reach those milestones?Or did we rejoice and celebrate in her milestones because we had no expectations of when she would do things and no milestones to have watched before her?

Would Lucas not want a little sister tagging along everywhere as opposed to now, when he wants to tag along and do everything she is doing?

If Lucas were the older one would he be the one showing Kayla how to do things and teaching her things? Or would he not be as ahead academically as where he is now if he didn't have an older sibling to hang around and be next to her as she was doing school work?

Would he not have picked up on all the things he's learned if he weren't trying to do everything his older sister was doing and keeping up with her?

In a lot of ways Lucas has already passed Kayla in development. Would it be easier to know he was ahead of her if he were older? Then it would be a natural thing for him to be ahead.

Would it be more natural for him to watch out for her if he was the older sibling? Whereas now he is the younger sibling, but in some ways he is more mature and more responsible, so he ends up being the one looking out for his older sibling. I don't want to put too much pressure on him to feel like he is responsible for Kayla in a way that a parent is ... but on the other hand we are all a family and I would hope that we all just watch out for each other just because.

Would things be different if Kayla had an older sibling to look up to? Or is it Lucas that is benefiting from having an older sibling to look up to?

So many what if's and of course no way of knowing how things would be different if their birth order was reversed.

But one thing I do know is if their birth order was reversed I wouldn't have the countless memories of Kayla teaching Lucas sign language, of clapping for him and cheering for him when he did something, of her saying "Yay Lucas!" or "Good job Lucas" or "You did it Lucas!" when he accomplished something.

 I wouldn't have been able to capture a video like this one. I wouldn't have this video of Kayla encouraging her baby brother to walk by placing a bean bag on her head and enticing him to come and get it. I wouldn't have a video of her giggling the whole time as he's making his wobbly steps towards her. I wouldn't have a video of her sheer excitement of watching this milestone happen.


Birth orders just happen the way they're supposed to happen.

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4 comments:

Deborah said...

Oh I love this! I love the video - the giggles, the bear-crawling and walking baby, and the proud sister encouraging him. I've been thinking lately about birth order as it relates to discipline - I think I am more lax with Ben because he's my third ... realizing that there are some things that I have let slide too much.

Sabrina Steyling said...

That video is totally cute; I love Kayla's laugh - it's contagious!

Elsha said...

I love hearing your thoughts on this! I am so grateful Daniel is our third (I've written about it) but it's fun to me that the things Kayla did and does for Lucas are the same things I see my older kids doing for Daniel. They're constantly asking me how to sign different things so they can show him, and they enthusiastically praise him for his efforts and accomplishments.

As we expect number 4 any time now I'm excited to see how Daniel is as an older sibling too :)

Anonymous said...

priceless!! love the video. It is suppose to be. :} love mom