June 29th, 2008

Sibling rivalry, sibling rivalry, and more sibling rivalry…

by Terri Libenson

  

If you’re a habitual Pajama Diaries reader, you’ll notice this is a subject I periodically focus on (in fact, the term’s so familiar to me, I just call it SR). Our kids, who are so sweet-natured alone, become the spawns of Satan anytime they’re around each other for more than 3 seconds. Okay, I’m exaggerating. In actuality, it’s about 50% best of friends, 50% hatin’ on each other.

We had a reprieve in the fall/early winter when they joined forces and decided to become roommates. We pushed our younger daughter’s bed into the older child’s bedroom. It seemed perfect: they kept each other company and also kept each other from getting scared at night. Then came the spring chill. Like the effects of an exorcism, the winter reprieve served to keep the demons temporarily at bay; now those demons are back and more spiteful than ever.

We’re taking steps to calm the storm again. I’m reading everything I can get my hands on about SR, and we’re trying to get the kids to work things out themselves. The one ray of light is that when they DO get along, they’re extremely close. ‘Course, that’s usually when they’re conspiring against us…

Thankfully SR makes for terrific comic fodder…

I’ve created more on this subject…be on the lookout in July and August.