Sibling Arrivals

A disturbance in the force (or two) doesn't always connote a bad thing. As I retrieved each of my two older children from the airport this weekend, the dynamic of my life shifted a bit. I feel just a bit off balance, but I wouldn't change a thing.

When my oldest daughter was only six months old, I discovered I was pregnant with her brother. (That thing about not being able to get pregnant while you're nursing, not so true, particularly when you cheat a lot with bottles.) I recall confiding in my mother-in-law as I approached full term that I didn't think I was capable of loving another child. Motherhood was still relatively new to me, and I still marveled at how much love I could feel for one little person; I couldn't imagine there was anything left. My mother-in-law assured me I would find it.

And I did, the minute I laid eyes on my almost ten-pound son who wouldn't be able to fit one toe into the adorable newborn non-pink onesies I had purchased in anticipation of his arrival (or, as I had thought, his intrusion). My heart pried itself open effortlessly to make ample room for this large, gentle baby with the cauliflower ears and the pensive green eyes, and within days I couldn't remember what life was like without him.

My two eldest grew up together, played together, rarely fought; they were so close, it was difficult to imagine one without the other. They banded together when number three came along years later. I would refer to them as "my kids," and my youngest as the baby. Two distinct litters, each one a unit of sorts.

Over the last few years, I have grown accustomed to having the two older ones gone and spending all my time with "the baby." Her siblings may have been more aware of the small tremors that led to the eventual upheaval of my marriage, but she is the one living with me in the aftermath, picking through the rubble alongside me, reminders of what was then and what isn't now surrounding us.

It was unsettling yesterday, for me anyway, when "the baby" went off to spend the evening with her dad and the other two stayed with me. It was the configuration I had enjoyed for six full years, back in the day, but one that is so distant in my memory I kept thinking I forgot something. "My kids" found it strange that I found it so strange. No imagination, those two.

Out at dinner, though my daughter joined me in a perfectly legal glass of wine and my son became our designated driver home, I could still conjure up images of the two big-cheeked toddlers playing for hours on end, creating imaginary worlds with their plastic Lion King and Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast figures. (They don't know this, but I've never been able to give those toys away.) They still have the easy rapport they shared when they were so young, still seem to have a telepathic understanding of each other, and, now more than they needed to back then, seem to derive strength and support from each other in dealing with their mom, who sometimes just doesn't appear to know what she's doing.

They each had old friends visit after dinner, and it was nice to hear the house filled with all of their noise. My dogs sat protectively with me as I read in bed, leaping off to greet each guest at the door but returning immediately to their posts by my side.

There was definitely a disturbance in the force, for better or for worse. Leo spent most of the night throwing up, which leads me to believe he managed to get his snout into somebody's wine glass. Manny went to check on him every once in a while, because, well, that's what siblings do.