Tag: Josiah Page 6 of 13
Josiah was not happy about getting a little sister.
For the first few months, he was grouchy, mean, and nasty….all the time.
Then he started getting the spark back in his eyes, but he was still mean. Poor Lily has been kicked, pinched, hit, called names, shoved down in the bathtub, had the door slammed in her face, and her big toe cut with scissors.
We’ve been trying everything. Every kind of consequence we can think of. He’s had a positive incentive sticker chart. He gets little prizes on good days (and there’s not very many good days). We have been talking and talking and talking to him. About how big brothers are supposed to be their little sister’s rescuer, protector, superhero.
Though she doesn’t make it easy either. She is stubborn and strong-willed and she starts screaming if he just looks at her cross-eyed. Quite often I have both of them in separate corners, screaming their heads off.
But I’ve wondered if Josiah is ever going to get it. Or if I’ll just be visiting him in prison.
Slowly, slowly, I’ve been hearing them giggle together. And now, at bedtime, he makes sure to say, “I love you, Lily!”
Then there was this morning. We were playing outside on the trampoline, and Josiah stopped at one point and ran into the house. He came back out with two cups of water.
“I didn’t know if Lily was ‘firsty, so I brought her some water too.”
And then, when she finished hers, he poured some of his water into her cup.
And my heart melted and I got all teary.
Maybe there is hope after all.
We got Lily a tricycle, since she loves to sit on Grace and Josiah’s bikes.
But the gift that she really, really, really loved? The beeping play phone that her sister got her. Worth about 50 cents.
Yep. Isn’t that always how it goes?
In a conversation about colors:
Josiah: I am brown.
Mommy: Yes, you are. What color am I?
[pause]
Josiah: You are orange.
[Hmmm. I would prefer peach. But technically, peach is just light orange. Okay.]
Mommy: Why do you think that I am orange and you are brown?
Josiah: Because you are a Mommy and I am four!
Mommy: Oh, so what color will you be when you are grown-up?
Josiah: Orange.
So I did set him straight but I don’t think he believed me. Orange is actually my least favorite color. Wish I was brown sometimes.
(these pictures are from the “Little Kickers” club that Daddy and Sam are coaching)
He is big now. He reminds me all the time, with importance in his voice. “I don’t get a sippy cup any more, because I am big.” “Mommy, can I hold your purse? Because I am big.”
And on our side, we remind him that big boys do not whine or hit their sister or pee in their popcorn bowl.
Yeah. We’ll see how long that lasts.
We celebrated at Water World, with his other four-year-old buddies.
These guys know Josiah well: soccer cleats and a Manchester United sheet.
I make him promise me, all the time, that he will always give me hugs and kisses, no matter how big he gets. And he always promises. I better get it in writing.
(And the popcorn bowl incident did only happen once, honest.)