Way back when I was taking Early Childhood Family Education Classes with Two the instructor insisted that young children do not play together, they simply play side by side. But I am sure that Mavis plays with her older siblings. Today they took an ordinary roll of tape and were rolling it back and forth to each other. Mavis was monkey in the middle happily going back and forth.
A day or two ago Two and Avril were playing hide and seek. They would go stand against the wall and count. Mavis hadn’t joined yet but when the opportunity came up she went to stand face to the wall and count.
My favorite thing to see is Mavis scoot over on her butt to one of her siblings and stand up and give them a hug. We are a hugging family if you haven’t figured that out.
It was a major goal for me to raise children that love each other and enjoy spending time together. I firmly believe that if you cannot get along with your family you have missed out on the greatest blessing in life. Afterall the Lord designed families to live together and even the solitary will be placed in families in the Lord’s ideal.
From the time I discovered I was pregnant with my 2nd child I wanted Two to feel that this baby was another gift to our family from God and not going to replace him.
Later when I was pregnant with my 3rd I decided to step up my efforts a notch. I was introduced to an amazing book–Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends. The book is actually written by the 3 Mally siblings. This book opened my eyes to the roll our siblings play in our lives and that good relationships with siblings are possible especially when the members of the family see the highest duty of life as serving. With sorrow I realized as the oldest sibling all the opportunities I missed with my sister and the damage I had done to her life simply by always focusing on making myself happy. If I was generous it was only because I felt good about it. I didn’t realize the duty we as Christians have. When I apologized to her she said, “Oh you were just a kid,” But I replied, “even a child will be known by his actions.”
I purposed to avoid silbing rivalry at all costs. Luckily I am blessed with children that enjoy each other. Rather then avoiding each other and choosing other playmates they love playing together. Of course there is the occasional scirmish but when I see them playing together laughing and joking it makes my heart sing. Now instead of having children upset about new siblings coming to take the attention from them I have a 5 year old boy who says, “Mommy I want you to have this many children,” While holding up both hands, “but you can have them one at a time,” and a 3 year old girl who says, “when the next baby comes can I hold it?”
Even our Brittany Hiro loves to play with us. Later in the day the request came for me to play with them as well. I am trying to spend more quality time playing with the children and avoiding electronic media so I knew I needed to jump in. It didn’t take long for Hiro to decide he wanted to play to. Two is the photographer in the below pictures.
