Liberty, Equality, but most of all, Fraternity

Today, Daniel said something that I found very temporarily flattering. He and I were alone, and he said something along the lines of "Three boys is even better than just two boys." I assumed that he meant that when Ian, he and I are together, it's even better than when it's just he and Ian...

But no! When I asked him for more detail on the proposition, it became obvious - he actually meant it the other way around: it's great to be with Daddy, but it's even better when you throw Ian into the mix as well.

When I told Amy last night about how Daniel told me that "one time" (turns out to be two nights ago) when Mommy made popcorn and Ian spilled it, Daniel took the blame because he's supposed to be nice to his brother (expecially). Amy laughed, and said that he does that sort of thing all the time. In fact, she said, Daniel is more focused on Ian than he is on either of us. It brought to mind the time that Amy very quietly told Daniel that he could watch some TV, hoping to keep Ian out of the Couch Potato Bin, especially because Ian was taking a nap, or something along those lines, and the first thing that Daniel did, instead of heading for the TV, was to run upstairs, yelping that he was going to go tell Ian.

When Daniel and I spent the day together a week ago, with Ian home sick, it was a similar phenomenon. We went to church, then to a pleasant, quirky little children's museum in an otherwise annoyingly yuppy suburb, and then we headed to the nearest big-ish city for Vietnamese food, or Vietanese food as two boys I know call it, because that is Daniel's favorite cuisine. (Yes, and Irish-Jewish-American five-year-old who insists on eating pho every time we go out to a restaurant...)

Even while we were out, Daniel was talking about Ian, and when we got home, I resumed my proper chopped liver status relative to the Firstborn. And it was mutual: as soon as we walked in the door, Ian ran over to Daniel, yelping with delight, said, "You were gone a long time," and threw his arms around his younger brother. There was no theater or hyperbole to the moment; it was like an instant reflex.

However, it is worth noting that I do enjoy a fair bit of status as a "boy". Sometimes when the three of us are together, Daniel will say something like, "It's nice to have three boys together." Today he discussed this, and opined that Amy and Madeleine probably miss us when were with each other, but absent from them. I didn't break the news to him that Madeleine is likely far too busy basking in every moment of one-on-one time with Mommy to wonder what the competition is up to. However, of course she is always happy to see her brothers, and asks where they are if she doesn't see them when she walks in the door.

Many years ago, my sister had a dilemma with her two children, who were about three or four at the time, because when one of them would get into trouble, the other one would lie to cover up for their brother/sister. Finally, she asked our priest's wife about it (most Orthodox priests, outside of monasteries, are married, and their wife has a somewhat nurturing orientation to the parish as "Matushka," or "little mother"). This particular Matuskha told her that her own children, when they were actually children, would also lie to cover up for each other, and she would always look the other way, because she wanted them to stick up for each other.

Of course, this wonderful thing that seems like exclusivity (and probably is) runs both ways between the boys. I'll never forget Daniel's first birthday, especially because when we woke up that morning - on Thanksgiving break, in a hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, but that's another story - I told three-year-old Ian as part of his morning briefing, "Do you know what today is?" and as he remembered, his face lit up into a giant grin, and he started nodding and clapping his little hands, perhaps without a word, in recognition of his baby-brother's birthday. It was really as if I had told him that it was his own birthday.

As I mentioned above, it's not completely flattering that Daniel is so much more enthusiastic about Ian than he is about us, but I still think it's good. C. S. Lewis says that God is trying to "get us out of the nursery,"; love for peers and compatriots is much more unselfish than the more reflexive affection between each child and either of their parents. It is this moving beyond the cocoon, bringing with you a quality of love that you first came to know when it was "all about you," that makes possible, ultimately, friendship, marriage and often the rebirth of the same treasure in a family of your own.

(February, 2011)