dual personalities

Happy Friday from daughter #2, with a little life check-in following our update a few months ago. I am happy to report that we are all still so thrilled to be at home together. Today’s happy routine was hard won — Ida did, indeed, have to relearn how to nap, and Katie had to accept that weekdays are still not weekends. For a while there, the girls only slept simultaneously for 10-20 minutes each day. Before long, though, we got into our groove: Ida takes 2 long naps a day, and Katie has an overlapping “quiet time” in the afternoon. (If she doesn’t fall asleep, she happily performs a one-woman-show of musical tunes for her stuffed animals in bed.) While I had imagined that I would need to plan capital-A Activities to keep us all occupied, that is far from true. We do chores together, we go to the park, we eat meals. We cuddle.

Like a lot.

Months 6-9 have been wild for Ida. She has learned how to sit, crawl, stand up while supported, eat solids, and more. She has also learned how to assert herself. While she once sat contentedly passive while her sister ran the show, she will now shriek her demands. Hold me! Feed me! Let me put your shoes in my mouth! I think it’s a good thing. (The assertive nature, not putting shoes in one’s mouth.)

What is family for if not to teach you that the world doesn’t revolve around you alone? Katie has, for the most part, taken this lesson in stride.

Because really, I can’t help but think being home with Ida and me has only amplified Katie’s own motherly, caretaking impulse. Babydoll and Katie’s animals receive around-the-clock attention, carried to and fro, put to bed in their bassinets, diapered and re-diapered, fed nutritious meals etc. While sometimes this can make life a little harder — well no, sweetie, babydoll does not need the highchair that Ida will sit in momentarily; we do not need to give “real food” to Clown Bear, and actually I do need this $0.36 diaper for the actual baby in the room — I also find it very sweet!

And of course, Ida receives ample care from Katie as well. She has an uncanny ability to guess which toy or teether Ida might like in a given moment (I’m serious! There are preferences at play!). She loves to hold Ida and has even, on occasion, been allowed to hold Ida while standing up — it is a sight to behold, as both sisters are grinning and also look like they must be deeply uncomfortable. And Katie loves stroking Ida’s cheeks just as much as I do, which is to say, a lot.

Well I’m not so much providing an update here as veering into weepy mode…

So I’ll try to wrap it up.

Sometimes I imagine what someone might think if they dropped into our house right in the middle of things — me, a grown woman, singing “Hands are for clapping” in complete and utter earnest; a three year old asking for a “way high boost” and executing a cheerleader’s split jump at no apparent prompting when her father lifts her in the air; two adults discussing a clock as if it is a roommate of the toddler’s with functioning eyes and a genuine sleep routine; a baby army crawling through a room and leaving a Godzilla-style wake of destruction through toys, books, and folded laundry (there’s always folded laundry out). It can be quite a scene. But it’s the best.