The other day, Evie was very, very upset at me. I can’t remember what she was mad about, but she decided to show her displeasure in the form of a picture (after all, it’s worth a thousand words). I saw her working on it before she gave it to me, furiously scribbling with clenched teeth and fire in her eyes. But even that mad, she just couldn’t resist adding little hearts and butterflies:
For some reason, Evie and Ollie have taken it upon themselves to become the new “driving monitors” for everything I do when we’re in the car. It is not uncommon to hear, “Daddy, are you going the right way?” or “Daddy, aren’t you supposed to turn there?” or “Daddy, why are you turning here?” as if they had any idea where we were going.
In fact, it seems to be stoplights in particular that get heavily monitored. The very millisecond the light turns, Oliver starts yelling, “It’s green! It’s green!” And then Evie immediately wants to know, “Why aren’t you going daddy?” “Because,” I usually tell her, “if I start going now I’m going to smash into the back of the car in front of me.”
The speed limit is often a topic of discussion as well, despite the fact that neither of them has any idea what the speed limit is, or what the speedometer says. “Dada, we’re going too fast!” shouts Ollie, or Evie questions, “Why are you driving so slow?” My favorite is when Evie casually (and passive aggressively) asks, “Are we on the highway daddy?”
Oliver seems particular concerned that I’m going to jam on the gas the second I’m in the car. He’s constantly admonishing me, “Don’t drive, dada! Don’t drive with the doors open!” or “Don’t drive without Mama!” if she’s not in the car yet. It’s like he’s absolutely certain that he’s the only thing keeping me from taking off with Sara hanging out the door only holding on by his still-unfastened seat belt. As if I’ve ever started going before everybody was ready. Usually, the car’s not even on yet.
However, the one cool thing is when we’re sitting next to a semi which starts driving. “We’re going backwards! We’re going backwards!” squeals Oliver. Oh man, I remember how much I used to love that when I was a kid!
Poor Evie.
I’ve just been noticing lately that we’re awfully hard on the poor girl. Basically, when it’s Evie’s fault, it’s Evie’s fault, but when it’s not Evie’s fault, it’s still Evie’s fault. We yell at her for hitting her brother, and then we yell at her for not getting out of Ollie’s way when he’s trying to hit her. We yell at her for taking toys from him, but then we yell at her for not finding a way to share when he takes something from her. She tries to help by comforting Ollie when he’s crying, and we yell at her to give him some space. We tell her to wait her turn, not interrupt, and to let Ollie answer his own questions, while simultaneously ignoring him when he does the same, justifying that he gets so few chances to speak. She tries to help, or just gets excited, and we yell at her for bringing things up, such as asking Ollie if he should get pee pee chocolate when we’re trying to end the practice.
I try so hard not to do it, but it’s like I just can’t help it. There are times when you have a strategy as a parent, and a 5 year old just messes that up. Being as she’s older, we do expect her to be the responsible party between the two of them. However, it’s hard on a 5 year old who is constantly being asked to take the high road. Her life sure would be easier without a younger sibling.
However, all this childhood angst we’re creating might not be the worst thing in the world.
I have long been fascinated by the whole “birth order” thing, wherein children have certain personality traits based on the order they were born. To give a few examples, first children tend to do better in school, because they tend to be permanently seeking the approval of adults, and also because they had a little “boost” as a young child being alone around adults, while youngest children tend to be less responsible and have a career in something more exotic but less secure, like being an artist. Youngest children have the security that comes from having a whole group of people taking care of everything before they get there.
Now I don’t believe birth order is the end all be all, but I do anecdotally see evidence of this all over the place. No predictor of personality (or behavior in general) seems to be very accurate, but birth order seems to be the most consistent predictor across cultures, geographic locations, socio-economic standards, etc.
And let’s face it, oldest children are the best! (Says an oldest child who is married to another oldest child)
I can’t help but think that all of this pressure the oldest sibling happens to take is one of the reasons they tend to be more responsible for things. Because we *make* them responsible for things. Overtly, we ask Evie to help her brother, but inadvertently we force her to take responsibility for both her actions and his actions. As parents, we lean on her more, and Ollie gets to skate under the radar a little bit. It’s no wonder then, that after a lifetime of that you just get used to the mantle of responsibility.
All that being said, I do continually feel bad when I realize we aren’t exactly being fair to her. Not only do I not want to be too hard on a 5 year old, I also want my 2 year old to turn into a responsible adult as well, not some free spirit, no-responsibility, must-have-my-way man-baby. I know that’s one extreme, and there’s no real danger of that happening to Ollie, but if it is true that older children consistently score better on tests or are more responsible, then isn’t it our duty to sort of spread that out a little bit?
Happy 5th birthday to my beautiful daughter Evelyn.
5 seems so old. I can’t believe it has been 5 years already. I guess that I am probably going to be saying that every year from now on.
Evie is so imaginative, and she loves to play pretend, specifically that she is a different girl (or angel or fairy) who is coming to stay at our house. We play that basically every night. Her favorite thing is to hear stories; stories about your childhood, stories you make up, or stories read out of a book. She will never, ever get tired of hearing stories. She likes to play with her friends, or make new friends. She doesn’t like to have relaxing time, but then when you go down to get her she is so engrossed in her games that she is reluctant to stop. Mostly she dresses her animals in crazy outfits, or builds elaborate towns with whatever she can find (blocks, duplos, and tiny pieces from any board games she can find, especially the cherries from Hi Ho Cherry O).
Evie seems so much older than she is. She is such a good girl. If she has any faults, it’s simply being too smart for her own good, which tends to lead to backtalk and thinking she knows better than her parents (I dread, dread, dread the day when she becomes a teenager!) However, we really don’t have to worry about her. She can manage on her own as well as any just-turned-5-year-old and she never gets into any real trouble. The worst things she might do are so much more minor than most of the stories I hear from other parents of kids her age. If anything, she is a goody two-shoes, and a bit of a tattle-tale.
Partially because of this, partially because she talks nonstop, and partially because of her love of imagination and stories, I sometimes really see myself in her. However, there are a few downsides to that as well. Evie can have a fiery temper. Much like me (or even more so, my sister), she does not appreciate being told what to do, and it practically ensures she won’t do it, even if it’s something she really wanted to do anyway. On the other hand, also like my sister, she is very independent and is not likely to allow people to push her into doing she doesn’t want to do, or to walk all over her. I’m hoping this can help at least a little bit against peer pressure in the future.
Ollie plays a big part in Evie’s life as well. Sometimes they can play together for hours. She mothers him like no other, and is more likely to cry if he gets hurt than he is himself. They only thing they really fight about is when they both want the same toy, which happens pretty frequently. Actually, considering he is 2 and hasn’t outgrown the idea that everything he sees should be his, this actually happens relatively infrequently, all things considered. Ollie is so rolled up in Evie’s life, she spends so much time thinking about him, playing with him, and caring for him, that I can’t really imagine what she would be like without him (although that goes double for Ollie, since at least I do actually have some memories of Evie before he was born). I just wish they wouldn’t keep each other from falling asleep at night.
So happy birthday Evie, here’s to a hundred more. I’m sorry that I’m too hard on you, and I can’t wait to see what kind of person you become.
Shane Halbach 