Birth Order

My children's obedience is directly proportional to the amount of time I spend policing them, which is inversely proportional to birth-order.

Sound a little deep? Let me boil it down.

With your first child, you can't wait to get up in the morning and spend time with him/her. You even find yourself standing over the crib at strange hours of the night, making sure he/she is still breathing and willing the child to wake up and play. They shadow everything you do throughout your day and you teach them all you know, including how to drive by the time they're 2. They can tell jokes like a pro, whip up a meal in 30 minutes, clean a bathroom so you can eat cereal off the floor, balance a checkbook, sew, sing, play tennis . . . anything the Mom is able to do, the first child can do equally as well, usually better. This child is taught order and cleaning chores are done together, mother and child. The culture and family traditions are passed carefully to the next generation.

Enter Child #2 - your life just became twice as busy. More often than not, Child #1 is teaching Child #2 how to keep order in the home, how to plan menus, how to toss a baseball into the air and whack it with the bat, sending it flying across the yards without taking out anyone's windows . . . This child seems to burn food more often and the bathroom still looks clean - on the surface - but you have the sense of germs lurking just out of your range of vision. Child #2 wants to please you AND the older sibling and tries hard, but you never seem to get the basics quite covered. You remember that you always worked side-by-side with your first baby. With this one, you attempt to "inspect" their work to be sure it's been done adequately, which is a hit-and-miss prospect, at best. Things begin to slide.

Child #3 makes an appearance. Gone are the days of training. It's all you can do just to get food on the table before bedtime and make sure homework is completed. This child is clueless how to make a bed and can't even seem to manage to get clothes on hangers correctly. In the few free minutes you have each day, you want to spend time snuggling the one child that still will allow you to touch them, not spend it "training" them to cook, clean, organize, keep ordered lives. This child is your delight, but never does a lick of work. If you ask them to put their shoes away, you find the shoes 2 hours later, moved to the next room down the hall from where you found them, but never actually put away. When you walk into the kitchen after switching laundry loads and discover that this child has run outside to play after you expressly told them to sit down and do their homework, you sigh, but never actually go outside to call him/her back indoors. You have dinner to start, math homework to check for the other two, lunch boxes that need to be washed out . . . As you're furiously setting the table for dinner (yet again), you realize that the disappearing child is responsible for table-setting, but it's quicker and easier to do it yourself and you're tired of pulling teeth to get them to do their chores.

As Perfect Child #1 sweeps through the room, announcing that he/she has completed all the assignments that the teacher will be giving out next week and can he/she now go and clean his/her room, you glance over to see Almost Perfect Child #2 wiping off the table after finishing his/her snack and carefully putting his/her cup (that had held milk, of course) in the sink. Then you realize there's a child missing - old #3, the one you just don't seem capable of holding to any responsibility.

But #3 is the baby, after all, and so sweet, you think. Images of a tiny, wrinkled little body flash through your mind as you finish setting the dinner table. Just then, the back door flies open and in stomps #3, crying because of an incident in the yard. You scoop them up in your arms, hold them tight, kiss those darling cheeks, and wipe away the tears. Okay, you think. This child may never be able to clean a bathroom well and I seldom have the energy to fight the battle with them over setting the table, but they'll be a loving parent one day, understanding the need that a child has for time with a parent.

And instead of asking them to show you their homework so you can check it over, you pull a stool up to the counter.

"Come sit down and visit with Mom for a few minutes," you suggest. Because, in the back of your mind, you realize that you don't want to waste the precious little time you have with this child arguing over chores.

I just hope this child has a very loving, neat, understanding spouse.