Alienation

While at the AmericInn with Rose, she played in the pool and stared at the kids who had siblings to play with. I know, I'm a blast to play with, you might be thinking. I did get in the pool for quite some time Saturday night--doing much better than a few of the other moms who sat on the sidelines. Yet, as I watched Rose's envy and sensed her longing for her own playmate, guilt overpowered my awesome playing skills.

When I got home and told Mike the story, he said Rose had asked him for a sibling recently. She even asked, "haven't you always wanted a son?" He told her no. Yet, the idea hasn't left my head. Now that things are calming down, it seems more manageable to throw another family member into the mix. Maybe. Maybe after one full year with Rose I could say that more seriously.

The problem is what age and gender of kid do we get? If the kid is too little, Rose will try to mother them, which would probably lead to arguments between  us and her as we continue to force her to be a kid herself. If the kid is a boy, they couldn't share a room, and we don't have a very big house. If it's a girl too near her own age, there's no guarantee they'll get along. Heck, I had a sister and we were more like competitive boxers than siblings. Although, I guess we did play together when we didn't have friends around even if we made each other miserable in the process.

Her bio. brother seems the best fit, but at the same time the state has legally separated them for good reason, and I don't think we can reverse that decision. So that leads me back to thinking nope, one kid is probably the best bet. It just means I need to work that much harder to pull myself off lounge chairs at pools and summon energy to play games until her bedtime. Really, isn't that what we became parents to do? Yes. Yes, we did. I just didn't realize how tiring parenting would be and how lovely lounging beside a pool could be.

In addition, I rationalize, life is lonely. I don't want to teach her that "the hard way" because I think she's all too aware of the harsh side of life.  Yet, there will be time when she feels alone: when she's moved into college and hasn't found her group of friends, when all her friends are married and she's not, when her sig. other has to work nights when she works days, or even when she has to change jobs. Let's face it, there are a lot of times in life when you aren't supposed to feel lonely but are.  So helping her find the friend within herself will come in handy--just so long as she doesn't start talking to herself in random places for entertainment.