“They” say you should never compare your children. Now, I’m not to sure who “they” are, but I am fairly sure that they are either lying or have only one child.
It’s human nature to compare things. Handbags, boots, wines and men, all have had many hours of pros and cons debated in coffee mornings around the world. We know that they are each different, each have unique qualities that make it “that” handbag, but we do compare and the same goes for children. The comparisons start at conception, and probably last all their lives. “Why can’t you be more like your sister” was probably something we hated our mothers saying, but find ourselves mentally thinking the same things. Elf Two could not be more different from Elf one, Both pregnancies were difficult and plagued with morning sickness, With Elf One, an awful birth and refusing to breastfeed at all until he was 6 weeks old made things hard. He didn’t sleep through the night until he was 3 ½ (years old, not months) and up until about 2 ½ he was hard work. Now he is a very placid, well behaved boy who is not only smart, but caring towards others and a real pleasure to take out. Elf 2 refused to come out of her own accord after 42 weeks including three endless days of false starts, but an easy peasy birth, coupled with being placid, cruisy and a great breast feeder made her a real pleasure. She even slept through the night from about 5 weeks. Around the time of Elf Ones transformation, Elf two was brewing one of her own. Almost overnight she went from cruisy to crazy! Lucky for her, she has an angelic face that is framed with cherubic blonde curls, so a heart melting smile from her makes up for a lot of her behavior. My big comparing mistake has been with the “Toilet Training Adventure”. Elf one, for all his little nuances when he was little, was very easy to train. At 2 ½ he basically he asked me to go to the toilet and has been dry ever since, accidents can be counted on one hand. Elf two was having none of this easy peasy stuff. After a few false starts I resorted to bribery just 2 weeks before she turned three, and with the threat of not starting at Pre School with Elf one looming large, she put on big girls knickers and the accidents have not stopped. She absolutely knows, and has done for at least 6 months, how/when etc, but she just gets caught up in life and forgets. Wees not so much of a problem, but Poo? Believe me when it comes to wiping, you want to be picky about how that gets done. To quote something I have just read written by Non PC Guru Nigel Latta “You can poop on the toilet if you want the pat on the head but to drop a log on the living room floor is more entertaining”. I am sure that she has somehow read this quote and taken it as her mantra. Slowly she is getting better. We no longer have logs in the lounge and she doesn’t bring me a piece now to show me what she did, but there is nothing more revolting that needing to dash to the small room (sometimes just for a break, you understand) and there it is. All over the floor. The walls. The seat. The bowl. Inside and out. And Oh My! The stench. The hope she would take a leaf out of her big brothers book is long gone, and all I can do is prey that by school time she will have gotten the wiping down pat.
So there it is. Compare all you want, but they sure as eggs will be as different as chalk and cheese.
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