My kids and notes: Year 10.3
July 16, 2025
Life with JB
It’s interesting watching the kids’ relationship develop. Compared to my lived experience, it’s super weird. We insist they treat each other with kindness, fairness and respect. It’s not always easy for them to do but we enforce the same rules for both of them, within age-appropriate reason.
JB has adored SmolAc since birth. (They have declared SmolAc to be “so annoying” about a dozen times over their lifetimes, a quota so low it was met on any single day of my life.) Likewise, SmolAc is deeply attached to JB. They fight and bicker and tattle, of course, but they also, with and without prompting, look for compromises and try to broker peace on their own. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But they do try their best, for whatever variable value of “best” they’re capable of that day.
My brother and I? Feral badgers. We physically brawled over everything. He never wanted me (specifically, me) as a sibling and tried to beat me into the shape he wanted: a brother who was a passive follower. What he got out of that effort was a sister who was exponentially more mean. I started out a fighter and he just honed my fighting technique. Ironically, what he wanted is how I felt inside much of my life as the youngest of most of my cousin groups: I felt like a follower who never had an original thought because so many cousins had already traveled before me, for better or for worse, and had spent my entire lifetime following and/or fighting an older brother who had already done everything before me. My path diverged sharply in high school but I didn’t quite have the perspective to see it then.
I hope that these relatively auspicious beginnings will lead to an equally loving, if occasionally exasperated, adult relationship for the two of them.
Life with Smol Acrobat
SmolAc has inherited my childhood possessiveness. Sitting at the dining table, they yelled, politely, to JB: “JB, could you not snuggle my bear please?! Because I want to.”
Pupdate
I have a semi sort of maybe 2026 (later in the year probably) timeline in mind for adopting a dog. It’s very squishy. It’s more of a anti-timeline. I don’t know when yet, I just know when it’s not (now). I’m using this time to trickle cash in the dog savings and multiple other upcoming spending situations.
Knowing all this, I occasionally go look yearningly at adoptable dogs when I’ve played with zero dogs for too long and just need a dog fix to get by. It’s usually at a safe emotional remove.
Today, however, I poked around because I’d just had a very fun chance meeting with a neighbor’s dog. That’s the exact wrong mood to take into looking at listings. I not only found an awesome local rescue specifically for senior dogs, I’ve fallen for three dogs. I want them. I want to kiss their noses and hug them and pet them and (here’s where PiC says: hi, Elmira! and I do not deny that one bit, YUP THAT’S ME). But I cannot have them all.
We aren’t ready for a new dog, much less three. The kids are older but they are nowhere near helpful enough to assist with three dogs. Their help runs along the lines of feeding them and telling the dogs where to go. We have a roof to replace. We have my Massive Job to wrestle into submission. PiC has to figure out how much effort he’s going to sink into any attempt for a promotion and navigate a labyrinthian bureaucracy. And if that wasn’t enough, completely independent of our professional efforts, both our industries are under serious threat from this administration. (At this point, who isn’t? Outside the broligarchy, that is.) We could both lose our jobs a year from now. We have to stabilize our finances before we bring anyone home because I’m incapable of rehoming or returning a dog. We had such a hard time integrating and training Sera š¶ that she had me doubting my abilities to be a good owner because her reactivity was such a challenge. I still couldn’t give her up. Or give up on her. Safety issues aside, but that was never a question for Sera – she’d never even shown irritation at us for anything, rehoming isn’t an option so we have to be rock solid. Once you’re part of our family, that’s it. You’re ours forever.
It does occur to me, about the anti-timeline, that if I did wait until Fall 2026, SmolAc starts kindergarten (there’s a new source of anxiety, btw). I’ll remove that daycare tuition line item from our budget and that’s a huge amount of money to stop spending so that’s one good thing about pushing it out that far. But that’s 18(?) months away and it doesn’t take away anything from the list of concerns above. So I’ve got to stop torturing myself looking at beautiful older dogs who need a forever home.
Precious Moments
SmolAc peeling an egg, sing-song: we’re going to find out what’s in here!
Me: boy, I hope it’s an egg!
SmolAc: No. It’s going to be yummy. Dad put something inside one dat is very good. Tadaaa! Yolk!
******
SmolAc: I have had all my main food! I am done! Can I have owanges now?
Me: Are you sure your tummy is full? Check in with your tummy.
SmolAc: Hi tummy, are you full now?
*squeaky voice* yes I am!
JB loud whisper: Awwww it’s just like I used to do!
******
SmolAc: Daaaad? I have too many toys.
Yeah you do. Do you want to give some of them to kids who don’t have as many?
SmolAc: yeah I want to give dem to (Rich Kid Friend).
Oh kiddo, RKF has MANY toys.
******
JB trips over a toy. OW!
SmolAc: Oh, dat’s because of my toy, JB.
JB: I KNOW, SmolAc. It shouldn’t BE there.
SmolAc: Yeah, it shouldn’t be dere.
JB: So can you move it??
SmolAc: Oh! Yeah! I can!
I think Feedly messed up and I just got a whole bunch of your posts all at once. Sorry if this is a very late comment! I love reading about your kids’ relationship. My kids are not the close. The older one was TOTALLY uninterested in her sibling when he was born. I remember when baby siblings would at preschool pick up and other kids would come over all interested and wanting to see the baby and my older one wanted nothing to do with them. That trend continued (and continues!) Now that the 11yo is almost 12, they are getting along a little better, but I would not call them close. My sister and I were weirdly close when we were younger (she is 7 years younger than me), but now we don’t have much of a relationship. Siblings can be complicated, but it sounds like your kids really like each other. That is lovely.
Thank your for sharing all the sweet things they both say. I don’t miss much from the toddler era, but the cute stuff that came out of their mouths is something I remember fondly.
All comments (from legit readers, begone bots) are welcome anytime š
I think your kids’ relationship is very much more common in their age range, at least it was when I was growing up. No one particularly liked their siblings when we were in junior high/high school except for a couple “weirdos” (affectionate). Not tormenting each other was the best iteration of that.
It’s possible these two will be like you and your sister: weirdly close while young and drift apart in adulthood. A lot of their good relationship has to do with the younger one adoring the elder and the elder appreciating that attention. It’s less about who they each are. So while I hope they will continue to like each other into adulthood, I’m braced for the possibility that they will become their own people and perhaps those people won’t like each other a lot. What I’m more worried about is one of them making a weird turn into right wing conservatism because I don’t think our relationship could survive that!
But for now, I try to focus on the good bits.
I love these kid vignettes! Really am not close to my sibling (baby bro 6y apart) and been reflecting a lot on how building a chosen family is a desire of mine in this next phase of life.
My blog has been playing up too but it’s not like I’ve posted in forever so…
All of the political BS you’re dealing with, esp impacting your industries… GAHHHH.
I know the right doggo will come along at the right time, and can’t wait for that day and to read abll about it. <3
My mantra for the past decade is Chosen Family!! I hope that our bio family will remain strong and together but even through my chosen families I’m learning: every family is so complicated.