I'm Just a Jealous Boo

Adjusting to life with two kids has been easier than I'd anticipated. Don't get me wrong - most days I run around with an empty stomach and undone hair trying desperately to keep up with my life. Still, I pretty much knew what to expect before I had Calliope because I'd already had Benjamin. The only thing that I wasn't experienced with was dealing with sibling issues, and I had some concerns. I'd witnessed some pretty vicious acts of sibling rivalry and heard endless horror stories. Would my sweet, good-natured Benjamin turn into a jealous, unreasonable brat? Much to my surprise, he... did.

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Benjamin's jealousy took a while to emerge. For the first few months, everything was great. Whenever another mom asked me how Benjamin was taking to the new baby, I'd wax on and on about how faaabulous things were. "Oh, he absolutely loooooooves Calliope! He can't stop kissing and hugging her! I just feel soooo lucky!" Man, I should have kept my mouth shut, because Benjamin's green-eyed monster was just biding its time. If only those moms to whom I'd bragged about my angelic children could see me now, they'd laugh. I'll bet the moms who already had two children were laughing on the inside, because they knew what was coming.

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Trouble in paradise began about two weeks ago when, out of the blue, Benjamin walked up to Calliope and whacked her on the head with a plastic golf club. Calliope immediately started wailing. I had no idea what to do because up until that point, Benjamin had shown no hostility towards his little sister. So what did I do? I snatched the golf club in one hand, grabbed Benjamin with the other, and sternly (a little too sternly) said (yelled), "BENJAMIN, NO!!!" He went back to his playroom, and - thinking that this had been an isolated incident - I went back to reading my book. Ten minutes later, I heard Calliope shrieking and saw Benjamin trying to pick her up by her hair. Once again, I said/yelled, "BENJAMIN, NO!" and tended to a sobbing Calliope. While I was distracted, Benjamin went into his playroom and calmly peed on his toy chest. This. Means. War. But instead of a war over land and oil fought with tanks and guns, this is a war over mama's attention fought with plastic golf clubs and wanton urination. I felt the urge to holler at Benjamin again, but seeing how it worked so well the last couple of times, I bit my tongue. I'd need a new way to deal with this problem.

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A few days ago, Calliope was hanging out in her jumper and Benjamin in his playroom. She was happy playing with her dangly toys. He was happy playing with his puzzles. But then Benjamin forgot that he was having a great time and became focused on the fact that his sister had a toy that he didn't have. He hovered over her, great interest showing in his eyes. After I took her out to nurse her, he seized the opportunity and...

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...got in! I opened my mouth to object, but then realized that no real harm was being done. Calliope was safe in my arms, and Benjamin was barely over the twenty pound weight limit. So I let him bounce around in there until he grew bored and climbed out by himself. I wondered if it would be this easy to deal with the next object of Benjamin's envy.

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Yesterday, I put a blue flower in Calliope's hair to match the blue flowers on her shirt. Benjamin wandered over her to her and examined her head. Then with eyebrows furrowed, he turned to me and said, "Ben Ben blue flower!"
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Luckily, I had two blue flower pins. I clipped the second one into Benjamin mohawk, then, as if to assert just how his adorable little sister had nothing on him, he climbed into her jumper once again. A few minutes later, he got bored, got out of the jumper and yanked the flower out of his hair. Whew! Crisis averted once again. Looks like the path of least resistance is working for me!

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For now anyway. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when he decides he wants to get into that!