This happened when Joseph was about one week old. I have been thinking about it ever since and finally want to write about it without crying. This has deeply affected me and reminded me again that I have a deep, soulful daughter even at just two years old.
Anne hasn’t betrayed any sibling rivalry or jealousy with Joseph. She’s had some adjustments but really, she almost seemed more upset with me than with the baby. She loved the baby. She just couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t 100% hers anymore. She never acted out at Joey or even at me to be honest. But I could see that she was confused and a little overwhelmed by everything. She stopped her potty training altogether. She seemed just needy; needing me and my time so much even as I was recovering from his unorthodox birth and having a brand new baby in the house. I felt like I was constantly on a tightrope, trying to balance their needs.
One day, when Joseph was a week old, she had a hard morning. Just didn’t want to do anything, followed me very closely, kept being nice the baby whenever she thought she didn’t have my attention, almost like “If I play with the baby, maybe she’ll play with me too.” It saddened me. I kept putting Joseph down and giving her all of my attention all morning and she would pick up for a while and then become sad or quiet again. She didn’t want to eat. She didn’t want to read her books. She just followed us around like a mournful little puppy. I put her down for her nap finally and she slept soundly for about three hours.
But when I woke her up, she sat up in bed, looked at me and just burst into tears.
She wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t tantruming. She was weeping from the core of her heart. Big tears rolled down her face and she held up her little arms to me, just gasping and saying over and over again, “Mumma.”
I gathered her into my arms and carried her out to our living room to rock in the rocking chair. She wasn’t content with just being in my lap; she turned around and wrapped her legs around me waist, laid her head on my breast and just wept. I held her and rocked and prayed. At first, I thought that maybe she had hurt herself or that her arm had fallen asleep or something. But she wasn’t in any physical pain. My heart was so heavy for her. I prayed and hummed, rocking her and whispering how much we loved her as she cried. Eventually, Joseph woke up and started to cry. She cried even harder. I had been holding her for about 20 minutes and knew that Joey needed to eat.
But something my mother told me once has stayed with me for years. She told me that the way that she made sure that I never resented my sister was quite simple: she always picked me first at this stage. See, her opinion was that my sister, who was a baby, was getting a lot of time anyway with sleeping in their room and breastfeeding etc. and what’s more, she wasn’t going to remember being made to wait. But me? I was Anne’s age. And I would remember that I didn’t get picked first. I would remember being second place. So whenever it wasn’t a life-or-death or tantrum thing, she always picked me first when we were small, trying to make sure that I understood that I was just as important as the baby.
My children are 25 months apart, just like me and my sister.
So I picked Annie.
I never made a move to get Joey. I told her that this was her time and he was okay waiting. She gulped and told me that she wanted to go back to bed. I carried her into her bedroom, over Joseph’s crying, and put her into bed. She told me she wanted me to stay close. I said, “I’m not leaving, Anne. Mummy’s right here. I’ll be right here.”
Then, my sweet, selfless daughter looked up at me, her blue eyes filled with tears, her cheeks wet and her lips trembling with emotion and said “You go get Baby Joe. He need nummers.” (which is our word for nursing)
She wanted to share, even at her moment of need.
So I went and got the baby and brought him into her darkened room. I sat down in the chair and began to nurse him. Annie laid down and looked at us quietly, now just hiccuping and sobbing once in a while.
She said, “Mumma, you sing?”
So I sang. I sang and sang and sang. Every old song I could think of from my childhood in small churches, old hymns, songs about how our soul is only satisfied in Jesus. Songs about how he loved us and how our trust is in him alone.
Tears kept falling from her sky-blue eyes and she just laid there, watching us quietly. No loud sobs anymore, just quiet weeping.
My mother arrived at the house. She came into the room and quickly took stock, figuring out what was going on (so discerning!). She gathered up Annie in her arms again. Anne wrapped her legs and arms around her. They just held onto each other for a while, my mum smoothing her hair and whispering to her that “Gah loves you too, Annie. Gah love you.” Anne stopped crying and rested in her arms, quiet now.
We all stayed in that dark room for another thirty minutes, just loving on Anne, singing songs.
I look back on that day now and I wonder, was she grieving?
Since then, she has not betrayed the slightest hint of jealousy. She has accepted Joseph as “here to stay” and loves him fiercely. She doesn’t act out with me. She doesn’t act out with him. She proudly tells everyone who pays her the slightest attention that she “has a baby brudder.”
But I wonder about that day. Was that her day when she realised that he was here to stay? The day that she realised she had to share her Mummy, the day she came to grips with that and conquered her selfishness?
She was so sweet and so sad, looking up at me and telling me to go get the baby. I was prepared to let him cry as long as it took with her, but her tender heart wouldn’t allow it.
The more I think about it the more I believe she was mourning from the centre of her tiny heart, mourning the passing of what had been and preparing to embrace what was coming next. Even if she couldn’t articulate it, she knew in her heart that things had changed and, before moving forward, she had to grieve for what had passed.
