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The green-eyed monster

We all know that Ane is quite capable of being jealous of her brother and the attention that he’s been getting. She has made that quite clear in the last few weeks – right down to pouting that her brother was sick, and wishing that SHE was sick so SHE could get all the attention.

She lived to regret that wish later.

But yesterday morning, I saw a shining example of the green-eyed monster coming out in Tad.

I was baby-sitting Handy Baby yesterday morning while his parents were busy. This is only the second time that I’ve gotten to watch him, but he is very familiar with our house and all the fun toys that we have. He was especially in love with this set of toy keys, and was pretending to unlock everything. It was very cute.

He arrived before the kids had actually gotten up – they had gone to bed late the night before – so I took Handy Baby into their rooms as I was rousing them out of bed.

When Ane saw Handy Baby, she instantly popped up, all smiles and ready to entertain him. Have I mentioned that she LOVES babies?

When Tad saw Handy Baby on his Mommy’s hip, his eyes widened, and then narrowed. I started to prepare breakfast for my two and set up Handy Baby with some toys, and then realized that Tad was nowhere to be seen. As this is not usually a GOOD thing in our house, I went looking for him.

I found him still lying in his bed. He was sulking about Handy Baby being there.

Now, he’s seen Handy Baby over at our house more than once, and seen me carry him. He’s even deigned to pat Handy Baby on the head, proclaim him a “baby” and then move on. But this time, he was downright jealous.

Tad finally got out of bed when I called him to breakfast, and because Handy Baby was so happy just puttering around with a few different toys (with Ane trailing him), I put on a CD for Tad and I spent some time wrestling and playing with him. He perked up considerably after that.

Still, when I related Tad’s reaction to the Webmaster that evening, we were both shaking our heads. We’ve always known Tad has issues with Mommy holding other babies – heck, he cried the first time I held his cousin Belle! But I thought he had moved a little beyond it, especially after all that time we spent in the church nursery and seeing Baby Cousin this last Christmas.

It makes me wonder what will happen someday when we bring home another child. Someday is not here, mind you, but I’m thinking that the green-eyed monster may be coming in for an extended stay here at the Corner Haus on the day Tad becomes a big brother…

2 Responses to “The green-eyed monster”

  1. Ressis
    May 30th, 2008 07:24
    1

    We’ll have to test this out more when I come with the Cousins – since that is right around the corner! Let’s pray the airlines don’t mess things up again.

  2. Matthew
    June 1st, 2008 11:00
    2

    Huh. I never thought of this. With twins they have never ever not had to share Mommy and Daddy. I don’t think this would bother them one bit. It’s part of who they are.

    Of course, we’ll see that if we ever decide on one more (and let’s pray that it is ONLY one more).