I really lucked out on the sibling front. My brothers are 8 and 10 years older than I am and are awesome! As a child, I never had to deal with the bickering and fighting the comes along with having a sibling close in age. Because they are so much older than I am, they just took care of me- they taught me how to do things, spent time with me and so on. Not to say that I didn't get on their nerves or anything, but I had it pretty sweet. Fast forward to the present where I have Sophia and Diego who are 2 years and 9 months apart. I am really having to adjust to how quickly things can go from the two of them playing sweetly together to it all falling apart with the two of them throwing knuckle sandwiches at each other. They so love each other but man, when they get on each other's nerves-- it's like World War III in the living room. Ramon assures me that it's normal- his sisters and brother are all one year apart. I guess me not being able to keep them entertained as well as I would like to bc I have to take care of Carlos and not having the opportunity to take them outside to burn energy probably has something to do with it. But I want to write down that happened the other day. Sophia was playing with a toy that makes music. She was playing all by herself for about 10 minutes and then Diego came along. He apparently didn't like the songs that were playing so he turned the toy off. She turned it on. He turned it back off. On. Off. On. Off. Finally she yells at him, "DIEGO- STOP IT! YOU'RE BEING SELFISH!!" He looks at her and pipes back," I NOT A FISH!!! I A BIG BOY!!!!" Oh- I couldn't help but crack up laughing. Sophia just looked at him and walked away. She had no comeback! I know that these little fights (and some of the big ones) are just a part of growing up. I just hope that they grow up knowing that they can depend on one another, through good times and bad. I hope they cheer each other on- like my brothers did for me. I hope they learn that it's okay to have different opinions, to agree to disagree and to love each other endlessly.
