Wobble Wobble

One of the most common questions I hear, right up there with “what were you two thinking?” is “what does Abbie think of the boys?” Our answer is “not much,” and that response applies to both questions.

I think people are hoping to hear that Abbie is a wonderful big sister, always hanging out with them, building block towers with them, and comforting them when they’re sad. Instead she’s ambivalent toward them, mostly ignoring them unless they have something she wants such as a toy or food. And don’t even think about trying to read to them if she’s around; as soon as she hears me reciting a book, she will come running from another room if necessary, snatch the pages from my hands, and commandeer the page turning and pointing duties.

Sometimes the only sign that she even knows they exist is she shoves them to the side when they get in her way. I’ve caught her trying to clap a brother’s hands at an appropriate celebratory moment such as the completion of a song or the stacking of blocks, but otherwise she pays little attention to them.

Recently she’s started playing Weebles with her brothers, though. I don’t mean that she’s finally using those Weeble play sets she received as gifts for their intended purpose of expanding her imagination through free play instead of just chucking them at pets and furniture. I mean she’s treating her brothers like Weebles, except they actually fall down after wobbling, usually with a thud, although it can take her a few shoves to knock them over.

I don’t know why she’s started doing this. She’s been shoving them for as long as they’ve been able to sit between her and her booster seat, but this is different. A brother will be sitting to the side, innocently trying to gather enough pet hair off the floor to make a clump worthy of chewing on. Suddenly Abbie will walk up to him and shove him. If he doesn’t hit the floor or he just leans to the side with his head still elevated, she’ll shove him again and again until he does hit the floor. Then she’ll laugh, and check her other brother to see if he’s also in a sitting position. The victimized boy usually screams when he whacks the floor, but quickly recovers when restored to an upright position in full view of his pet hair clump.

I think this is a form of entertainment for her after she grows bored of tearing her books and drawing on the furniture. I don’t think it’s an attempt to grab our attention because Ellie and I are too aghast when we see her do it to react. Anyway I don’t even know how to react. She still doesn’t understand timeouts. I tell her things like “no,” “stop,” and “dear lord, what are you doing?” when I catch her pushing them, but she usually keeps going until they fall over. Perhaps “you’ll be sorry when they’re big enough to push back” would get the message through.

I guess for now we just rely on the old standbys of redirection and telling her “no” in the hopes that it sinks in eventually. In the meantime we need to watch her carefully to make sure she doesn’t do anything more harmful. And we need to be thankful that we’re consciously thinking about not adding any more children.