Sibling Affection...

There is nothing sweeter than watching your children fall in love with one another.

A parental love of their child is instantaneous and starts to blossom even before their heart starts beating.  The love between siblings is a slower process marred by competition for mom’s affection and competitive screaming matches.  I have always felt blessed that Toby had such an innate love of Mia.  He was never one to demand extra attention while I was breastfeeding; he readily recognized the importance of his sister’s needs and accepted that they were a priority above of his own.  I would never have known the bond of siblinghood to be so strong if I hadn’t had the privilege to witness Toby as an older brother.  I remember the days before Mia was born praying that I would be able to love my second as mucha s my first and the weeks after she was born praying that she would one day love Toby as much as he loved her.

And then Mia grew into her own and started stealing his toys.

With Toby being the competitor that he is and Mia being the bossy little ball of stubbornness that SHE is, the peaceful bliss that I bragged about in paragraph 1 was transient.  The moments of me worrying whether Mia will one day love Toby as much as he love(d) her have now been usurped by worries about little fingers being caught in slamming doors and what critical screech decibels are safe for our windows.  But every now and then I get a reminder of that precious love my first born has for his baby sister.

Saturday mornings were Toby’s hockey mornings.  He played at 1030 am and the whole family would pack up our stuff and head to the arena by 10 am so he had enough time to get into his hockey gear in order to play his game.  Rob an I have had a great opportunity to connect with other families in our Brewster Lake community and Mia even met a little girl her own age who was in skating lessons that used the ice for the hour before Toby went on.  Before you knew it, Mia had her own skates, helmet , skating buddies and ice time which took up yet ANOTHER hour of our Saturday mornings and also deflected the attention YETAGAIN from her poor older brother.

Most mornings now, we arrive at the arena in enough time for Mia to get suited up and on the ice and Toby gets lost in the pile of siblings his own age who play various 5 year old arena games that often involve screaming, hiding and LOTS of running.  I leave him to his new group of friends for the first 30 min before dragging him to the changeroom to get ready for his hockey practice.

Last Saturday Toby was unusually quiet on his way to the arena and when I asked him what was up he said that he was thinking about how he’d like to watch Mia’s skating practice for a change.

“That’s nice of you Toby’ I said and thought nothing more of it.

After we got to the arena I left Toby with his friends and frantically got Mia into her skates and attire before heading off to meet with the other moms.  After a few minutes I decided I should find Toby and went off in search of the large group of boys – he was nowhere to be found.  When I FINALLY located the boys Toby was not with them.  I started to panic and ran into each dressing room looking for him to no avail.

Finally I spotted him out of the corner of my eye.  He had moved to the cold rinkside portion of the arena and pulled a large overturned bin right beside the rink to the spot Mia was practicing.  He was sitting by the cold ice, all by himself up high on this bin, his little legs dangling, watching, with adored admiration, his little sister skate.

I think back sometimes to the weeks of panic I had thinking how much I might ruin my first born’s life by selfishly having another one; and now I have the perfect reprieve.   Toby is an old soul and although he may find a few more challenges in his life, having to share it with Mia, deep down there's nothing but unconditional love for her.  She's a lucky little girl...