Being Siblings, Becoming Friends

Jie-Jie came to our family knowing how to play, share and love other children. I'm not talking just about a child who would tolerate having another child share his space and his things. Watching him interact with the little girl (the child in her mother's arms) on our trip who came from the same orphanage as him was a beautiful thing. I'd never seen a three year old child be so gentle, so caring and so loving towards another child. Whenever they saw each other they would run together, hug and give each other whatever they had. He'd give her his last piece of watermelon, she'd give him a toy she was playing with..... They'd give spontaneously, happily, without feeling that they were losing something by giving it up. How did the orphanage do that? Seeing how Jie-Jie interacted with people totally changed the expectations I have for my children. I went to China thinking that we would label things in the house as 'his', 'hers' and 'ours', but I came back from China with only one of those labels - 'ours'.

So, because Jie-Jie was used to living full time with other children, he was (in a way) used to having siblings. His adaptation has been one of learning to live with Eva. Eva's learning curve has been much steeper and her progress has been interesting to watch.

For the first week in China, Eva was either jealous of or indifferent to Jie-Jie. If I held or helped him, she cried (sometimes screamed). Sometimes she would try to hit him to get him away from me. He would be playing with things and she would rip them out of his hands. Since she is bigger, there wasn't much he could do and he was very confused about why she was acting like this.

By the second week in China, she was much, much better about Mama doing things with Jie-Jie. Jie-Jie and Mama could sit together on the bus while she sat with Daddy, I could hold him, push his stroller a bit and even play with him without Eva having a total cow. Since Jie-Jie was so into Babba we were actually transitioning both kids over to the opposite parent at the same time. So, when Eva did make a fuss about sitting with me it was usually just as well that they switch because chances are that Jie-Jie was wanting to go to Babba anyway. Eva had a few full scale, full out tantrums in Beijing the first few days we were there, in large part because Mama and Babba were so done with the copious amounts of whining and crying that had been going on and because we were forcing her to treat her brother fairly.

By the third week that Jie-Jie was with us (our first week home) Eva was completely fine with Mama doing anything with Jie-Jie. I saw her focussing coming off of us and on to him. Things started to get intense and physical. We literally could not let them out of our sight. The second (even nanosecond) that they were alone, she was at him. You see, Eva discovered that being 10 pounds heavier than the person holding something you consider yours is a slight advantage, so she began to use it. At first we tried to be kind and gentle about it, but when she accidently pushed him down the stairs our attitude changed. Three time-outs later (Eva had never had a time-out in her life before that) the pushing stopped (his biting her may have helped stop the pushing too....you think?). Poor Jie-Jie was at his witts end, just slightly stressed out, but we were so tired that it was all we could do to get the daily things done and keep some peace between them.

The next week our 'normal' routine started. Eva and I went to Mom's Morning Out and the kids got a little break from each other. It was like a turning point. For the rest of that week, we made sure that they were apart for a little bit each day. Dad took Eva to a different playgroup or swimming while Jie-Jie and mom played or went for a quiet walk. You could see Jie-Jie's stress level drop and Eva's willingness to interact with him (in a positive manner) increase. They still didn't interact that much and they certainly weren't playing together, but the constant negativity began to decrease.

So how is it now? When I think back to how their relationship was a month ago - two stangers thrown together - I can see strong, positive progress. It's not just that the fighting has diminished. Each day they have more positive than negative interactions, Eva is earning back Jie-Jie's trust, they have begun to have jokes that only they think are funny (putting cheese in your soup and then waving it around is apparently hysterical to almost-three year olds) and they are starting to copy what the other is saying (Eva says 'yoopee' when she drops things and Jie-Jie said, 'lait' today rather than 'nioo-nie' because Eva had just said it). They do 'play' together a little and sometimes, just sometimes, they'll kiss each other goodnight.

I see that one day soon they will be more than just siblings. The potential is there. They are both kind, loving people and I think they have made some very small steps to becoming friends. What surprises me the most though is the way my heart swells and tears come to my eyes when I witness those tiny sparks of possible love pass between them.