Sibling Writhe-elry

Well hello, blog. Good to see you're still here after a whole year.

So, today I took Nikhil to the community rec center for a 45 minute science class on Wriggly Worms. I had planned to drop him off and then run some errands, but peer pressure is powerful, so I take my seat on the edge of the class with the other parents and try not to retch when the promised worms are produced.

Ariane sits on my lap, quietly soaking in everything the "Mad Scientist" has to say, and behaving like a model child. I watch her with curiosity, and then the images start flashing through my mind like punchy slides in a PowerPoint presentation:
YESTERDAY: We went to SunSplash waterpark. Three of us got wristbands just like everyone else there, but Ariane, being under3, paid nothing and got no wristband. "Mommy, when I grow big I will get a wristband too."
LAST WEEKEND: At the homeschool conference, everyone wore green lanyards with name tags hanging off them. Ariane was too young to pay or get a name tag. "Mommy, when I grow big I will wear a name tag."
MONDAY: Nikhil got BeyBlades, the coolest craze amongst the Crossfit kids. Ariane's not co-ordinated enough to play. "Mommy, when I grow big I will battle BeyBlades."

And then it hits me: my sweet child, like me, is The Younger Sibling. Fated to a lifetime of not being old enough - knowing that no matter how quickly she grows, she can never catch up to her sibling. He'll always be cooler, faster, stronger, cleverer, more advanced.

 As a kid, even things I loved were always shown up as juvenile trivialities next to my Older Sister's Important Stuff. At 4 years old, I had to sleep on the lower bunk because she could be better trusted not to fall out of the mysterious Bed In The Sky. At 10 years old, I thought I was glamorous and fashionable in my "bubble skirt", such a hit in the early '90's. Until I spotted my 14 year old sister in... wait for it... a STRAPLESS top. How could I ever hope to be that cool? I slunk away in my bulky bubble and watched from a distance as she flirted with the neighborhood boys.
And so it was all through childhood and beyond; I mastered writing my alphabet - she was already Writing in Cursive. I was graduating from pharmacy school, she was Getting Married. I was getting married, she was Having A Baby. I took one step - she was always 2 steps ahead.
I learnt that nothing I ever did would be good enough, or novel and exciting - it had all been done before, or was being done better than I could ever do it.
Reeling out of my reverie into the Worm Seminar, I watch Ariane watch Nikhil get a real live, fat, wriggly earthworm on a petri dish. Feel her hand tremble with anticipation as he is invited to touch his worm. Hear her swallow when he is given an animal cracker to dissolve in his mouth without chewing, like a toothless worm. By the time Nikhil gets his big, bright yellow magnifying glass, I can't make out if it's Ariane's voice or mine I hear in my head: "One day I'll be big/ important/ clever/ cool like that." Only, I know older siblings never wait for younger ones, and she never will get her wish.

I whisper in her ear, "When we go home I'll get your magnifying glass and you can look at the worm, ok? Are you sad?"
"Uh-huh. I... I... I just want to go home, Mommy."

My throat too tight to talk, I swoop her out of the room, to the front desk and try to sign her up for a soccer program, basketball, ballet, t-ball, science classes, ANYTHING! They can't do it till she turns 3. As a homeschooling parent, it frustrates me to have to be limited by such an arbitrary constraint as a date of birth. Don't they know that at 2 years and 11 months she can sit still and listen just as well as she will a month from now? Feeling powerless and annoyed, I hand her a dollar bill and let her buy a snack from the vending machine, an ineffectual gesture to quell my discomfort.

Hours later, the emotions writhe in my gut like a tub full of earthworms. My daughter is my 2nd chance to prove to the world that younger siblings ARE important. We CAN achieve what older siblings can, we can be original and clever and cool. Will I win this time around? Or will I loosen my grip and let my daughter prove it herself? I pray for the grace to support her unobtrusively, letting her claim her place in the world. May she do a better job than I did.