When the Older One Doesn't Want to Be Associated with the Younger One

We're in a difficult phase these days with our two younger sons. For seven years now, I've had one big boy and two "little" boys. That's just how it felt. I know I've been guilty of lumping the two younger ones together. Who wouldn't? They're just two years apart and, for the most part, have gotten along splendidly.

But something shifted a few months after my middle son turned nine. He began to attempt to individuate himself from his little brother. It started subtly. It bothered him when the waiter brought both Trevor and Sean the Styrofoam kid cups. He wanted the grown-up glass. He didn't want to order from the kid's menu, insisting he's not a kid anymore. He began to hang out in his older brother's room more often, watching programs Bryce is allowed to watch but Trevor is not (things like South Park and Family Guy).

Then he began to distance himself from Sean by refusing to share things in common. He didn't want to share the same toothpaste tube. He threw a fit if he discovered that Sean happened to select the same color of socks he was wearing. He refused to allow him to make the same Rainbow Loom bracelets he made. He didn't want Sean playing the same video games. He complained about having to take the same bus and tried to be late so that I would have to drive him to school separately.

It has since morphed into something far more painful. He is often outright rude to Sean, a guy who has the sweetest disposition I've ever known. He has taken to making fun of him, something we simply will not allow. We are in daily battles to keep their interactions respectful and friendly.

The thing which bothers me most is watching Sean suffer through what is clearly just a stage of growth for Trevor. Sean has internalized it and taken to thinking his brother doesn't like him anymore. We try to explain to Sean that Trevor is merely asserting himself as a bigger kid than he was before and that it is just the age he is trying to distance himself from rather than the person, but, alas, it still feels like the person is being attacked. It grieves us to see Sean hurting like this.

After giving it much thought and discussion, we attempted to curb the negativity by upping Trevor's responsibilities in exchange for a half an hour more time at bedtime. His 8 o'clock bedtime has long been a source of contention for Trevor as he insists that none of his classmates have to go to bed so early. As long as he follows through on the few additional chores, he is allowed to stay up until 8:30, with the caveat that the bedtime will go back to 8 p.m. if he cannot treat his brother with respect. Sadly, he's lost the extra half hour quite a few times.

Thursday night, I thought that rather than punishing the bad behavior, I would try to encourage the good behavior, so I informed them (as they both went to bed at 7:30 because of the afternoon's endless squabbling) that I would be taking boys who treat the other one with kindness and respect out for an ice cream Friday night.  It did help. They were bending over backwards to be nice to one another for a day. Whether this will help when a shake is not in the picture remains to be seen.

We have an honors banquet coming up next week for Bryce. He is being honored for being one of the top ranked students in his senior class. Trevor will be going to his friend Jonas' house and Sean will go to his friend Carter's house. I'm grateful for the two families who are willing to take them because goodness knows they would have been horrible at one house together.

It can't hurt for them to have their own space and time (although we still have to force them to share a room). Indeed, I'm kind of relieved that Sean has decided he doesn't want to go to CBLI, our annual Bible camp, this summer (I think he is fearful he will get another awful, life-threatening eye infection like last year - click here for the horrifying photos). He wants to spend the week with Grandma and she is willing to have him (he's the easiest one of the bunch). So Trevor and I will travel to Wisconsin and share the 9 day encampment together. He is excited about it because, for the first time, I am telling him he will be able to go off on his own during the afternoon free times. In the past, I've always accompanied the boys (they were 6 and 8 last summer) for whatever they wanted to do during free time. I'm excited because I'll actually have the free time to myself to nap, read, write or join the band, if I so desire. A win-win for everyone.

But, I'm not so sure we are out of the woods on this issue. I think it is certainly a stage we're going to have to get through. Thankfully, I know it is just a stage. This too shall pass. I'm very hopeful that they will go back to being good friends once Bryce heads off to college and Trevor establishes himself as the older of the two. That is what I want for them - a good friendship between brothers. After all, "a brother is born for adversity." (Prov. 17:17) The whole reason we had Sean and moved to this house was to give Trevor a closer sibling than his much bigger brother (an 8 year gap). Today, he cannot seem to recognize his blessings, but I hope he will be able to see them in the future.

How about you? Have you dealt successfully with this issue? What things did you try to help the older sibling navigate the new waters of pre-adolescence without wounding the younger sibling? Goodness knows, I'll take all the parenting advice I can get!

Book Review: Coming Clean

Kimberly Rae Miller's memoir, Coming Clean, is all that a memoir should be. As Jeannette Walls, author of the memoir, The Glass Castle, puts it:

“Memoir is about handing over your life to someone and saying, This is what I went through, this is who I am, and maybe you can learn something from it. It’s honestly sharing what you think, feel, and have gone through. If you can do that effectively, then somebody gets the wisdom and benefit of your experience without having to live it.” (www.rd.com/advice/great-tips-on-how-to-write-your-memoir/#ixzz2vqmIqbnf)

By reading of Miller's experiences with growing up in a hoarding household, we get the chance to explore the ideas of how our backgrounds shape us, sometimes shame us, but ultimately force us to accept our shortcomings and love who we are regardless of where we may have come from. It is a story of the resilience of family relationships, despite personal neuroses, and a story of love in the midst of tragic squalor and embarrassment.

Miller's brilliant father suffers from hoarding, a pathological need to have endless papers surrounding him, while her mother suffers from a compulsive tendency to shop, an emotional tool for responding to the limitations her diseased body has placed on her. Yet, as a devoted daughter, Kimberly never gives up on her parents, even when their behaviors anger her and require her to somehow find a way to manage the family and keep them from the consequences of their tendencies. She tirelessly comes to their assistance to purge their dwellings from their interminable stuff. It isn't easy. Goodness knows, she resents being put in that position, but after all, these are her parents and she is able to see the good in them and their value, despite the illnesses that plague them.

The story was heart-tugging and real. It provided, as all good memoirs do, the chance to step into the author's shoes and walk around a little. I found myself wanting to do a purge of my own home. I recognize that I have my own hoarding tendencies - a desire to keep too many papers because they may come in handy someday or I may wish to revisit the words again, a thrill in finding a clearance bargain even if it is something I don't need at the moment, the inability to get rid of the over-abundance of clothes my sons have, when they tend to wear the same shirts and pants over and over again - tendencies which could and should be curbed. While my home doesn't present the squalor or floor-to-ceiling stacks of Miller's childhood, I do wish my home could be a more clutter-free zone for my children and spouse to live in. It almost made me want to join the 40 Bags in 40 Days campaign ... almost. I'm not there yet. I'd rather spend the time writing than whittling down my stuff. Ha!

But I still found much to take away from her story: A person can rise above the challenges placed before them and carve out a new life. The love we feel for our family won't be compromised by the emotional and mental baggage we carry. We can forgive our parents for mistakes they've made and still come out the other side to be productive, well-balanced individuals (a blessing, since I'm making my own share of parental mistakes, for sure).

Book Review: The Playdate

This was one of those psychological thrillers where the ground you're standing on continues to shift until the truth is finally revealed. Many Amazon reviewers gave it four and five stars, but I wasn't as impressed with it. It was an easy read, but the characters were hard to get behind. They shifted from good to bad and bad to good and were, in some cases, just weird. The premise was a good one: what if something were to happen to your child while on a playdate? (The hook on the cover: "You leave your kids with a friend. Everyone does it. Until the day it goes wrong.") The story was interesting, but in the end, the book was just okay.

Callie has a hard time making friends in her London neighborhood. The other mothers all seem to snub her, apart from one sort-of close friend. She's not really very close. Callie can tell the relationship is more one of convenience than true soul-sharing, but she continues to rely on her friend, Suzy, nonetheless. Suzy has a dashing, successful husband and three boys and wants to spend their newly established free time (because Callie's daughter, Rae, and Suzy's oldest son, Henry, are both in kindergarten and Suzy's younger twins are finally in nursery school) doing things together. Sadly, Callie is feeling the need to pull away and actually return to work, now that Rae is more established in school and her heart problems seem to be abating. Callie's return to work isn't going smoothly, but Suzy makes it clear that she is more than willing to help out getting Rae out of after-school care whenever Callie has to work late.

Spoiler alert: Here's where the story began to get more confusing. Callie calls Suzy to ask her to pick Rae up because she has to work late. Instead, Suzy asks the strange neighbor, Debs, (who has some mysterious background and hyper-alert sensitivities to noise) to walk the girl home because Debs is a teacher at the after-school care program. While on the walk home, the girl falls into the street in front of an oncoming cyclist. This is somehow a highly serious accident, despite it only being a scratch, because of her heart condition, although it turns out to be fine (and at this point, I'm wondering why the book is titled "The Playdate" when the incident happens on a trip home). Suddenly, suspicions focus more on Debs, but then it turns out it is Suzy who isn't really what she appears to be. In fact, all of the characters begin to shape-shift. It turns out that Debs is really just a concerned by-stander who is being tormented and set-up by Suzy, who ends up being the key nut-job. Callie's daughter, Rae, is revealed to be the product of an affair with Suzy's husband, Jez. Callie's ex-husband, Tom, who has seemed to be a bad guy, turns up with a renewed desire to protect Callie and Rae. Suzy takes Rae from a play-date (hence, the title, finally) with another little girl, Hannah, and attempts to kill her in a car accident while she is driving. Say what??? Really, it was all a bit too much to take in and seemed too sensational, as if the writer was just trying to come up with the key shock factors.

I think the author was successful in presenting the story by interweaving the narration from three perspectives (Callie's chapters told in first person, and Debs' and Suzy's chapters told in third-person). I also think her writing was smooth and easy to follow. The plotting was good. But, in the end, the characters shifted too much for me. Somehow I felt like I, as a reader, was being manipulated. Still, for a first novel, I'd say Millar did an outstanding job and has great potential for future psychological thrillers.

Book Review: Room

I've certainly heard the buzz about Emma Donahue's book, Room. I was thrilled to find it in audio form just as I was in need of a new book to begin while walking on the treadmill. My husband happened to be in the exercise room when I started and he gave me quite the look, since the narrator is a five-year-old boy ... highly expressive, but five-years-old nonetheless. I had to explain to him later about the book and the plot line.

Five year old Jack and his Ma live in an 11x11 foot room. It is all Jack has ever known. It is his fifth birthday and he is processing all the things about his special day. Slowly, his Ma begins to explain more about their life than he has ever heard before. He is under the impression that the things on TV are not real. Anything outside of the room is, to him, outer space. She begins to acknowledge that there is a real world outside the doors of their prison. She explains that she used to live with her own Ma in a house with a hammock out back, but when she was nineteen and headed to a class at college, a man tricked her into his truck by claiming to need some help with his dog. The man, someone Jack calls "Old Nick," brings them things they need and accepts their list of requests for "Sunday treat." Every night, Ma hides Jack away in Wardrobe so that he has very little association with "Old Nick." But she begins to realize they cannot survive in this way for very much longer. For one, Old Nick has lost his job, and for another, she cannot imagine keeping the boy safe from their captor for too much longer. Something has to change and they must come up with a plan to make it happen.

While this novel was intensely riveting (I could barely tear myself away from listening), it was also deeply disturbing (mostly because the story was entirely believable and based on things which have tragically happened in our world). I think the most clever aspect of this novel was its point of view. Telling the story from the perspective of the five-year-old was genius, even if it must have been difficult to communicate all that needed to be said. The chosen narrator was the unique angle which led to the book's success, in my opinion.

At first, I found the voice of the child to be a bit grating, but the deeper I got into the story, the more eager I was to glean his perspective and to approach the sad tale from the eyes of a child. I don't want to give away any significant bits of the story-line (a difficult task when there is really so much I could say about the midway point and the end of the tale). Several points in the book were truly terrifying as I wondered what would happen to this poor mother and child. It was also interesting to explore the nature of the mother-child bond, both for mothers in bondage and those in normal life. (The author actually admits that the germ of the story arose from her own experience with the sometimes suffocating nature of motherhood.) Suffice it to say, I would read it again and would recommend it to others as an engrossing read.

I did search for information about other books by this author and found that none of the rest of the books sound even slightly interesting to me. This may be the only book I will attempt from this author. Still, I'm glad to have read it and to have submerged myself in this maddening story, if for only a short while.

Book Reviews: The Phantom of the Post Office and Hollywood, Dead Ahead

I am a sucker for a punny book by Kate Klise, with the outstanding illustrations of M. Sarah Klise. I loved the first three books in this 43 Old Cemetery Road Series: Dying to Meet You, Over My Dead Body, and Till Death Do Us Bark. Like the Regarding Series, these books are full of characters with clever names, interesting story development told through letters, transcriptions and newspapers, and good educational fun.

In Phantom of the Post Office, I.B. Grumply, Olive C. Spence, and Seymour Hope are hard at work on their next installment of their serialized novel but are not sure how it will be distributed since the Ghastly Post Office is closing for good soon, to welcome in the advent of Vext-mail (video enhanced text messaging). Ghastly's postmaster, Sue Perstishus, is entirely against the development, but cannot convince the U.S. Postmaster General, Sal U. Tayshuns to back down on the idea. In the midst of this, Seymour finds himself in the hospital with the flu, where, through correspondence, he meets M. Balm's niece, Wynonna "Wy" Fye and discusses the classic book, The Phantom of the Opera. Wy is a reluctant participant in the correspondence department because she is addicted to her cell phone, which her uncle confiscates and passes along to I.B. Grumply for the duration of her month-long visit. Dr. Izzy Dedyet is hard on the case, trying to cure them of this phantom flu bug in time to save the post office.

In Hollywood, Dead Ahead, the writer/illustrator trio are welcomed to Hollywood when Moe Block Busters proposes to make their novel into a movie. Olive can't get any respect and Grumply and Hope are changing, and not for the better, because of their imminent stardom. Olive works with the new leading lady, Ivana Oscar, to remedy the bad contracts, murder plots, and altered story lines of the film. With characters like Luke Ahtmee and Mel O. Drama, you're sure to get another laugh.

These books, geared towards ages 9-12, are simply delightful. I was thrilled to learn that the Klise sisters are hard at work on a sixth installment, entitled Greetings from the Graveyard, where we are promised another mystery and more cleverly named characters, like the butler, T. Leeves. Keep up the great work, Klise sisters! I, for one, love your puns and clever story lines.

Book Review: Lost Lake

Sarah Addison Allen's novel, Lost Lake, is a novel full of nostalgia. It makes you hearken back to a time when life was really good and you almost let a good thing slip away. It makes you long for yesterday.

Eby Pim is getting ready to sell Lost Lake, a plot with lakeside cabins which she has run since she returned from her magical honeymoon in Paris to chase a dream of owning a small plot of resort property in Georgia. Her husband died long ago, and now all she can think about is travelling back to the places so filled with wonder when they were young and in love. So she is determined to do her inventory and close up the cabins. But several old faithful summer guests return for one last hurrah. Plus, her great-niece, Kate, shows up, with an eight year old daughter in tow, hoping to relive the magic of her twelfth summer spent fifteen years before at Lost Lake.

Kate is just coming to from a year of numbing grief after the loss of her husband and wants to show her daughter, Devin, the magical place of Lost Lake, where she cavorted with a wild boy named Wes and enjoyed the freedom of the summer. Kate has allowed her mother-in-law to call the shots for far too long and believes this spontaneous trip might make up for a year of not quite responding to her daughter's needs. It is indeed all she needs to bring her to her senses and remind her of what she really wants out of life.

I agree with Fannie Flagg's endorsement on the back cover: "You will love going to Lost Lake with Sarah Addison Allen and meeting all the fascinating characters who live there. This book is filled with mystery, magic, and wonderful surprises!" You will lose yourself in the tale of Lost Lake and all the many loves which weave in and out of the story. It was a sweet read. I would give it 4 stars.

Adorable, Creative Little Girl

You've probably already seen the buzz around this four year old fashionista, but I had to share because I'm just thrilled with the creativity and cuteness of this little girl. Not having girls, and not having any fashion-sense myself, I can't imagine how fun this must be. I love how Mayhem struts her stuff and insists on making new dresses almost daily.

(photos from FashionbyMayhem)

If you have time, take a moment to view this post, where they show the progression from the first paper dress made to the present day creations. The side-by-sides next to the celebrity dresses are awe-inspiring. Or visit Mayhem's mother's blog for even more pictures of Mayhem and her creative dresses at www.FashionByMayhem.com. Amazing! Adorable!