Monday, March 29, 2010

Challenges of Child Spacing

There are several aspects of having three children that I hadn’t considered or properly realized until recently. In my case, my two older children are just that, older.

While the spacing between my second and third children was not planned to be almost 4 years, that is how it worked out and for the most part it is working just fine. We don’t know any differently.

However, one challenge of having the third child so much younger than the other two is that as a toddler she wants to do everything her siblings do even if she physically can’t do it yet. Her siblings climb the tall slides at the parks or the indoor bounce house and D wants to join them. Nevermind that there are things just her size that she can do…it’s just not the same. Her frustration at her own size and limitations is evident in the squawks and screeches and the boneless protests of being led away from the “big kid” things.

I imagine I felt some of the same frustrations as a toddler, wanting to follow my older brother around and being just a little too small to do what I wanted. My brother is also almost 4 years older than I, like K is almost 4 years older than D.

Although the age difference is a bit challenging right now, I know that it will not always be so. By the time D turns 3 she will be running and jumping with her siblings and cousins without problem. She is close to that point already and she’s not quite two.

Before I know it, my three children will be running in a pack together, forgetting what it was like to be an only, or one of two, taking for granted that there are the three.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

1 comment:

Heather T said...

I was the third of three, 3 and 5 years older than me. My mother enrolled me in montessori school immediately after my 3rd birthday because she said I sat around the house all day asking when my sisters were coming home from school. If D needs any advice growing up, I'll be glad to lend a willing ear :-D