Firstborn Furor

“Mom, I want you...!” A plaintive voice calls from the top of the stairs.

It is 7:00 in the morning and my son has just woken up. My uncharacteristically needy four-year-old son.

I swallow as much breakfast as I can & hurry upstairs. Woog's tousled head is sticking out of the bedroom, his pj's hitched up to his knees, making him look like a dwarfish buccaneer. As soon as he spots me, he ducks back inside the door and jumps into his bed. “Mom, I want some chocolate milk”. And belatedly, “please...”

I sighed. The clock is racing against me. I have to be riding to work soon. But I get him his favorite dinosaur cup anyway. What do they say about time flying...before I know it, he'll be chugging down his own beer without my help.

Ever since my bump started showing, Woog has compensated for his burgeoning insecurity with increasing bouts of neediness, petulance, whining and (heaven help me) baby talk. Translated: regression. This from the self-proclaimed “big boy” who would insist on changing himself, even if his shirt were on backwards; who would bring his plate to the kitchen after every meal; who would make his own bed with special attention to the sheet corners; who would give himself his own bath, warding off any adult with a fierce flash of unibrow, his only concession to helplessness being “please wash my back”.

Where did my big boy go?

I had expected this. Sort of. When we first learned we were pregnant, the husband and I took him aside and explained this coming-of-age phenomenon known as Big Brotherhood. Ever conscious of being as objective as possible, we told him of the pros (the baby will spend most of its time sleeping; you get new stuff, it gets all your hand-me-downs) and the cons (it'll cry and poop a lot, and maybe, just maybe, you'll have to wash some baby bottles).

We did this, every single chance we could get. The child rearing books say at this age, the key was repetition, repetition, repetition.

And it did seem to work. For a while. Many times I'd wake from dozing to find Woog kissing my tummy goodnight. Upon arriving home from work, a tiny human projectile would fling itself at my midsection (“look baby, I made you a robot dino from my lego blocks!”).

Things were going so smoothly until, spawned from a well meaning sentiment of family-togetherness, we took Woog along with us for the baby's ultrasound. There in the clinic, with both parents and doctor cooing over the monitor, Firstborn's forehead creased ever more inward, and his generous brows gave a forecast of thunder on the horizon.

And thunder it did. In the next few months, Atch & I tried to keep our tempers, our sanity, and our hands from Woog's obstinate little neck. We were treated to behavior that ran a gamut from overly saccharine (“Mom, am I your sweetest?” - multiplied 20 times), to deeply sore (“I'm mad at you! You're not minding me!”), to downright stinky (bedwetting! When he hasn't had an accident in almost a year!). In between, he tried his damnedest to keep us by his side at all times (“Don't go, please don't leave me!” - clinging to our clothing exactly two seconds before we set out for work in the mornings, and in the exceptionally dire instances when a bathroom break was necessary).

In the rarest of times when the husband & I get to really sit down and talk, Woog's increasingly downward spiral becomes prime fodder. Are we paying him too little attention? Should we smother him in more hugs, kisses and cuddles? Have we been growling at him too much?

We took a long look at Woog. A really long look that had the boy squirming in his short shorts and biting nervously at his hangnails. We hugged him, inhaled his aromatic head and nearly gave him hickeys. By the time we were done, he was squirming to be released. “Woog,” we said, “you're a big brother now. Its time for you to show a good example for the baby to follow. Would you like the baby to whine like you?”

“No.”

“Would you like the baby to be misbehaved, rude and disrespectful?”

“No!”

“So will you be in charge of showing the baby the proper way to behave?”

“Yes..... Mom, am I your sweetest?”

So we started giving him more responsibility. He gets to turn on the electric insect repellent in the evenings and lay out his school clothes for the following day. We put him in charge of switching off the night-light, and lugging his potty to the bedroom before bed. He still has to master the art of folding his underwear, but he's getting there. Altogether, he's too busy being responsible to worry about being the flavor of the month.

The other week, I took out his old baby stuff for cleaning. “Lets give these to the baby, Mom.” He decided. Inside, I smiled and I smiled.

As an experiment, I sent him off to sort out all his toys: those he would keep, and those we'd donate to an orphanage. It took him a whole sweaty indecisive day, but afterwards, he proudly showed off half a garbage bag of discards.

He's trying mightily hard to please, my little one.

The other day, we took him with us for a pre-natal check-up. While I was weighing in, a woman in bed behind a hastily drawn curtain started groaning loudly in active labor. Woog, holding my handbag, started looking anxious. In a startling preview of the kind of man he'd likely become, I saw him glance up, glance down, glance at me. But never again did he let his eyes drift back towards that woman in the throes of childbirth.

In the car, we explained to him that giving birth was a messy but necessary affair. It hurt like hell, yes, but the end result was wonderful. Point in case: himself. I brought up the possibility of a midnight labor, that he might wake up in the morning and find me gone (to the hospital), but Atch smoothed over an impending rough patch by deciding that he would haul everyone, Woog included, to the hospital when the time came. “It'd be better to make him feel included.” That settled, Firstborn relaxed with a smile.

This morning, Woog woke at 6:00, excited. Today was P.E. day. Half asleep, I observed him from the corners of my mote-encrusted eyes as he made his bed. Noisily, he dragged a chair to take down his change of clothes (prepared from the night before) and grunted his way into them. He gathered up his used dinosaur cup, his tiny towelette, and turned off my alarm clock just as it rang.

“Wake up Mom! Its morning. We'll be late!”

Despite my rough heartburn filled night, I sat up and gathered him in a hug. My big boy was back.

16 June 2006