Siblings

One of the reasons we wanted to have two children was so that Cherry would have a sibling.

Someone to play with, to share with, to fight with and to love.

The selfish part of us also liked the idea of the two of them being able to play together meaning that we might not need to spend so much time doing Hello Kitty puzzles or playing with Play Doh.

Now J is here I have wondered on more than one occasion whether they will ever actually get along in the way I imagined. To say Cherry didn’t react well to his arrival would be an understatement but I am slowly starting to see signs of things improving.

I think a big part of the problem is her noticing the inconsistencies between the way they are treated. For instance if she hurts him we put her in the kitchen for three minutes but if he tries to scratch her then we don’t. We have different rules for each of them because he is a baby and she’s not but despite me selling her the idea that being a big girl is better, it just makes her want to be a baby too.

Part of me wonders whether it would have been different had he been a girl. She is so girly and when I watch her noticing other little girl babies pink shoes / clothes I wonder whether it would have made a difference but there we go. We will never know now.

I’m still remaining positive though and I am really hopeful that once she sees him walking and talking she will realise that they are the same and it’s not her against him, the baby. Hopefully then she will realise that it’s them against mummy and daddy!

As well as observing their relationship grow over the next year I am also going to be capturing it on camera as I’m very excited to be part of one of Lucy’s many brilliant photo projects.

It’s called Siblings and the challenge is simply to photograph your children together then join in with the linky which will go live on the 10th of each month.