Siblingitis

Siblingitis: severe inflammation of tiny, tender emotional egos characterized by swift oscillation between soft, playful affection and extreme, physically manifested frustration. Listed as most common cause of maternal insanity. Tx: time

We have a daily cycle of acute siblingitis going; Love: despise. Love: annoy. Love: attack. All quite reactionary and mutual. Emotional outbursts puntuate the day, ricocheting like a bullet in a tin can. It's funny. And sometimes it makes me totally nuts.
There are days the monkey and the bug are sisters and best frenemies. I love their interest in each other. Blue desperately wants to participate in every aspect of Curly's life; Curly diligently seeks to teach her sissy all that she knows. They can play together in ways I wouldn't have anticipated at so young an age: they already have games original to them, the rules to which I'm fairly ignorant of but can see that they each fully understand. And seemingly just for the sake of contrast, they are already supreme masters of button pushing. Like they each came with a complete and perfect knowledge of exactly how to drive the other absolutely mad. This morning the girls stretched across the back seat to brush fingertips on the way to drop daddy off. Just trying to have physical contact as long as they could, and beaming each time they found success. An hour later, RED ALERT, children are screaming bloody murder and hoarding cups of juice. Repeat the cycle at least five times a day, swapping out infinite unique scenarios.
The episodes, be they happy or sad, indulgent or defiant, expire quickly. It's so weird. I think it's just part of learning to live together. To share space, attention, possessions, and air. To be a family requires work, apparently from the word go. I remember that, just didn't realize it all started quite so early. I thought you had to have some kind of verbal ability, or at least some idea of personal property to really get in each other's way. And it's all so different from this seat. The fighting, small scale and temporary as it is, hurts my head, and sometimes my heart. And I have a sneaky inclination to be lazy and avoid. To somehow acquire two of everything, because sharing is hard, whether it's toys or mom, whether you're 1 or 3 or 30. And it's even harder to teach. I'm tempted to seperate them, give them totally distinct lives, and only mix them when they're sure to appreciate each other.
Then I think of my brothers. How close we are in age. Four of us in ten years. You know we suffered our share of siblingitis. I think of my brothers. How I love and admire them. How I would pick each of them as my friend even if we hadn't been forced to figure out how to enjoy each other. And I feel like they would pick me too. I remember a bunch of things, moments that make a mental collage of my childhood as the only girl. Me providing the drama, taking the bait every time. Those fellas, they never would let me take myself too seriously. I remember once, I had this dress for a formal dance. Periwinkly blue silk with a lace up back and whale bone corset. It was prissy, prissy, princess as they come. My brothers christened it "the Buick" and refered to it at every possible opportunity. The poor dress joined the ranks of "the Grecian goddess" and "the wedding dress" (which, incidentally, was black) and a whole bunch of other dresses, not to mention dates, I could never be in the same room with again without suppressing a smirk. I'm smirking even thinking about it.
I think of my brothers and the bzillion inside jokes we have; words and cues and subtle looks that refer to instances that will never grow old. How learning to breathe in concert yeilded far more benefits than simply surviving the threat of suffocation. We're growing in four different directions, yet our roots are still intertwined. Our kids are and will be special to each other, and extra special to us. And I think of my husband, and his sisters, and how they're the same. And how they welcomed me too. And my thinking shifts. The siblingitis, still leads to a good bit of vaso-constriction. But all the sudden it's worth it. I don't need to exterminate or cure it. I can let this run its course. And I don't need to get impatient about it. I can try to guide this, and help the girls fashion their interactive skills. And I'll mediate innumerable contentions of indecipherable cause. And I'll stop being a baby, stop looking for the easy out or feeling like I must be totally failing if my girls don't always get along. Even when they are just one and three.
Siblingitis is a function of the process of loving each other. Of growing together. It'll shake out, bit by bit, year by year, so slowly and steadily I won't even notice until it's gone. Somewhere, in that weird annoying process, people figure it out. Families bend and adjust and grow and stretch, the elasticity of each member improving until the fit is snug, yet most accommodating. I'm glad my girls will get to know that. And get to be that.