My theory on the neverending wish list of my second born #ziva, #second #mine

I am a second born kid. Suresh is one too. This means we both have a sibling older than us. I am really glad because we kind of figure out the reason for why our second born behaves a certain way sometimes. SOMETIMES.

We have been seeing for a while now how Ziva is always asking for something. We have done our absolute level best to ensure that we treat both of them equally. But I think the inequality creeped in anyway when Ziva was born 1 year and 10 months later.

A few days ago, Ziva walked down the stairs after a shower with a shorts and the tshirt and someone who was sitting at our table waiting for lunch called out ‘HI! You are wearing Isaac’s clothes’. She looked down at herself and said as confidently as she could ‘No I am not!’. But the truth was she was! I felt a pang of guilt. I also realized that Ziva had a lot of hand me downs. Not crummy ones but still they were a seconds ... used. I really have no problem with seconds. I personally used to love wearing my cousins and sisters hand me downs. But I think somewhere along, this trade down of items causes a bit of a scar.

To talk about clothes alone, it seems like Ziva has a lot of clothes and Isaac too few. But if you look closely a lot of what Ziva has is mainly hand me downs. Including from cousins. A few months ago when we visited my sister, she took Isaac and Ziva to the hypermart to buy some color books and pencils. (We had left our pencil box and book bag on our flight to Mumbai). Isaac walked in and bought one drawing book and one set of color pencils. My sister asked him if he wanted a fancy pencil box or a bag or anything. He held his drawing book and said, ‘This is all I need’. Ziva on the other hand needed no coaxing. She soon had picked up a pink bag a pencil box, crayons etc.

I honestly find it hard that I raised both of them in the same household, with the same facilities. Yet my little girl had chosen to pick up random stuff that she probably never would use. I think all she wanted was something that someone bought just for her! Not a hand me down, not a second thought. Just for her!

Wearing Isaac's swim clothes

The theory of and downside of hand me downs: If its clothes, they rarely fit properly. They almost are never the color you like. This works very heavily especially if one person is a pink lover and the other a green lover. If toys or other items, they always seem scratched or  used. There is never that pleasure of opening up something new.

Suresh and I have similar stories. Stories of wanting our parents to buy us something. Stories where we adamantly demanded something that was probably unreasonable or unnecessary. Suresh once sat on a tricycle and refused to get off it till his parents had to finally buy it. I remember wearing so many hand me downs and since I was a size smaller, spending many hours tightening skirts and shortening salwar kameez’s that belonged to my sister. I did use this as an opportunity to make them a little extra short and a little extra tight 😉. While I did love her clothes, about the 11^th grade I made a total wardrobe switch and started wearing nothing but T-shirts and Jeans. This reduced the sharing I could do and I stopped the pipeline of hand me downs. Ziva has already started on those lines where she prefers wearing skirts and dresses to pants or shorts 😊. I say smart kid.

Isaac's sweater 

We were recently planning to get a new bicycle for Isaac since he is starting to ride mine now. As we talked about it I saw Zivas expectant look. We kind of held back our decision. In about 1 year and 10 months, Ziva would be using my cycle too. We would wait till that time to buy a cycle they both would share. No more hand me downs. Changing to a world of sharing and equal opportunity.

The BUTTON and the LEAKY TAP - A story on equality

A few months ago, one Sunday evening we were hanging out at home. It was unusual, since we are almost never at home on Sunday evenings. We had the company of one of our youth from church and this little controversy started through a rather simple request from Suresh

Suresh: ' Hi Rohini - can you stitch my shirt button?'
Before I could reply, the young girl jumped in.
Girl: ' Why can't you stitch your own button?'
Suresh was taken aback and we realized that we had a budding feminist in our presence. I think he responded something to the effect of  'I dont know how to stitch a button' - which led to further horn locking and comments on why men could not do everything.

We live in an age that is completely confused. We don't have separate roles anymore for men and women and we believe everyone must do everything or at least know to do everything. The term here is equality.
A common argument I hear is how the woman's role is changing in our times. I.e. women are leaving the home to go to work and so men should help out more at home. But are they helping out more at home?
The button request conversation made me realize that there were things that my husband could not do on his own. And .... it made me happy.
Marriage is not about equality. If we were two equal individuals, who could do everything on our own, we would not need each other. The word 'need' is very important in marriage. If we do  not 'need' each other then it would be like roommates with kids :)
As I thought further into the 'button'  conversation, I realized there were many things I could not do on my own! Like fix a LEAKY TAP! Or even simpler things like unscrew a bottle lid. I could get someone to fix it like a plumber - and Suresh could get someone to stitch his button.
But just the fact that I had a person who asked me for help and I could go to the person for help, made me realize the joy of inequality.
We frequently talk about men having brute strength and women having emotional strength. That is the beauty of inequality in marriage.
We recently attended a marriage seminar and were asked to describe our marriage. Suresh described ours as a three-legged race. Clumsy, but holding on to each other!

Marriage is not about equally dividing responsibility. Marriage is about sharing responsibility.
Marriage is not about who makes the Tea. Marriage is about making Tea for someone and having someone you can ask to make Tea for you.
Marriage is not about about who brings home the pay check. Marriage is about taking the decisions together on how that money is spent.
Marriage is not about who stitches the button - but also who is willing to ask for the the button to be stitched and who is willing to stitch the button :)

Siblings and all that ... Jazz

I remember when I was growing up... people would come up to my mom and  say 'Two girls'  and '3 years apart' ... 'oh they must not fight at all'. My sister and I we fought like cats and dogs! We used words a lot and we got on each others nerves all the time. My mom had to constantly yell  'If I come there both of you are going to get it.' - Reminds me of Russell Peters  'Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad'
We also were inseparable (At least till she got married and I left for the US). And that is the other side of this sibling coin. I cried when she got beaten and she fought for me (to get my parents approval) when I wanted to marry a man of my choice. Do I need say more?

When I had Isaac and Ziva with a 22 months space, I knew the nightmare would come. Someone told me 'Don't worry, they will be really close'.
Yes Maybe - but 'Payback's a *&^%$!'.
I am sure I gave plenty of grief to my mother, so it was my time now.   I watched my sister deal with my nephew and niece and I realized any age gap and the sibling jazz was bound to dazzle us all. And now its my turn

I am seriously tired of the  yells and screams coming from the basement. ‘Amma she is not sharing with me.’  ...'Amma he is looking at me!' ....Really !! Another favorite place for them to fight is in the the back seat of the car. 'Amma his leg is close to my car seat.'
I find myself frequently saying 'If I come there .. you both are going to get it'

Sometimes its minor tugs and pulls while others are more emotional and long-lasting fights and it seems like they may kill each other.
I know these sibling quarrels are a common occurrence in most households. But I have started thinking of how I can set the rules so we can have a calmer day. Especially since we homeschool - Isaac and Ziva just have to get along for more than a seconds!
Suresh keeps saying set the rules and if they dont abide its time for the rod. But what are the rules and should I read it out to them like the ten commandments!

Commandments:  As in every household the most important thing is ‘Rules’. No one likes them! But everyone must follow them! Here would be my commandments for the Joel Household for the next few years
1. No hitting,
2. No name calling
3. No hoarding
That's it ! If I can just get them to abide by these, the world would be more peaceful.
But it does seem like sharing is the toughest. Yes - especially in a household where there are over a thousand toys both will have a tug off for one toy. And of course we are almost going to the point of  'I had it first' . So what do I do. ' No share - no play'. It works! They both cry for a while and then its almost like they gang up against me and play together with a completely different toy!

Good Job: The best sprinkling of masala over the wound at this time is. Good Job guys! I am so proud of you two sharing and I have my babies back in my arms! Now Ziva has even started asking me. 'Amma are you happy with Isaac and Me'!

Wearing my boxing gloves: Sometimes, though it does seem like I have to get down in the boxing ring and separate them! And this is when we use the hug theory. Hug, are the best thing, I have realized, and use it commonly when there has been a physical fight. Its not possible for me to always use my eight eyes and watch who started the fight or who pushed whom. Conversations are not entirely clear and this seems like the perfect time to talk about forgiveness. Usually in this case no one is innocent. So we go into hug mode. 'Isaac and Ziva hug each other. Now say I am sorry.' This is irrespective of who had done IT! And I think its not the words ... but the touch that makes them both melt down and again in 5 minutes we have WORLD PEACE.

Unity in Adversity: 'Isaac you must protect Ziva. Ziva listen to Isaac he will take care of you.' I found him 20 minutes later sitting next to her quietly watching her. She too was sitting besides him and they had not pulled each others hair out. Somehow when you make the family claim, even kids seem to understand the song 'We are family'. Best way to leave them alone and hope for peace - Add a touch of responsibility!'

Who's dunn it!: And then there are those times when you just got to know who is the culprit. This may be the broken phone that they were both yanking at or the TV that just wont switch ON because both wanted to turn it ON. You just got to know. Currently we use books for various characteristics. We have a series called Bubbles  and one particular one is  'Bubbles Owns up' ... There are tons more about not fighting with other, Not being a spoil-sport. And recently we found one very good one about not teasing your sibling. It hit a home-run with Isaac and now all I have to say is 'Remember how Pipo was mean to his sister' Lot of perspective. And it works way better than me screaming 'SHARE' or 'BE NICE'. The books are nice because they are so non-judgemental

Vishesh Tippany (Translated special message): I am slowly also realizing using myself as a example may also help the kids relate to relationships and their value. So I guess Isaac and Ziva are going to here a lot of stories about Amma and 'Mona Velliamma' and of course 'Ammachi!'

At the end of the day I just got to remember that I too  have waged the sibling war and turned out fine. The key is to keep the whole sibling rivalry healthy with plenty of love and forgiveness and HUGs!

Keeping it equal - The sibling story

I always feel that everything should be equal between Isaac and Ziva. When Suresh opened a bank account for ISaac. I made sure one was opened for Ziva and when he dumped in some money into Isaac's account, I made sure he put in something into Ziva's account. It did not matter that both amounts just got swept off into FD's with high yields for Mom and Dad. It had to be equal! What if Ziva opened the bank account statement one day and saw the discrepancies in the amounts! Yes - I am paranoid. And Yes I am overestimating my little ones capabilities (or shrewdness). And Yes it does seem that somewhere in my childhood, I may have been scarred as the neglected/forgotten second daughter.

My councellor/ physcologist friends if you think I am over analyzing read below.
If I go to buy clothes for Isaac, I will buy at least one small thing for Ziva -- may it be even a bloomer! If I stitch Ziva a new dress ... I stitch Isaac a new vest.

When Isaac started Art class and I was feeling really bad of always leaving Ziva  at home with the maid. So I started a 'Mom and me' - Toddler program where Ziva and I could go and spend two hours together once a week at a play group. I was so determined that it be a Ziva and me 'only' time that on the last class when Ziva's teachers suggested I should bring Isaac along, I paused, thought and then refused saying this was special for Ziva.

I recently got the sonlight cirriculum and there was a workbook in it. So Ziva is going to get all of Isaac's second hand books. Now there is a workbook set in there. To keep things equal, I decided to make copies of this and use bound Xeroxes for both of them and keep the original as a reference.

I know its getting crazy right! But I only realized how crazy I am today! I got some groceries ordered in - and one item was a Chocos cereal box and with it came a 'Magic spoon'. I looked at the box and almost came upstairs to order another box with the hope that I would get one more 'Magic spoon'- It had to be equal. I stopped half way through ordering and started typing this blog!

The craziness has to end. I can be equal in another way. At least with things that are common to both Isaac and Ziva.

So tomorrow when we eat Chocos, they will both get bowls of milk and Chocos and ONE Magic spoon. Isaac will get one use of the spoon and then Ziva will get one use. And thus we shall learn to share everything possible (including cooties from each other mouth - if it helps Amma's insanity with equality)

Now the question rises - who should get to use it first.


Please pray for me as I approach this new phase of insanity.