As soon as I ask for questions, I inevitably have a dozen posts composing themselves in my head.  But, I said I would answer questions so here goes:

Question 1 by Shumei (who is probably never going to speak to me again now that she knows I am an unrepentent teenage hooligan):

I want to discuss sibling rivalry! My two girls (aged 6 and 12) have a fierce rivalry going on with me as the prize. I just wondered how other people handle this. Also – with your situation of one biological child and one adopted child…do you anticipate any issues between the girls on this? So many ‘jokes’ exist in popular culture about one child feeling neglected in a family and wondering if he is adopted as if that were a curse, I just wondered how this played out in families where this was the reality.

I don’t really have much experience with sibling rivalry between my girls yet, probably because they are only 2.5 and 5.  Right now, the biggest problem we have is that L adores M and wants to do everything she does (play with M’s toys, sit in her chair, sleep in her bed, etc.) and M finds this mildly annoying.  They do squabble from time to time, but it isn’t much of an issue.

Since I was about 10, my sister and I have not been particularly close, so I try to overcompensate in making sure my girls appreciate each other.  Lately, I have been talking to M a lot about what it means to be a big sister and how it is her responsibility to look out for L and to be kind to her (even when L is annoying).  I am hoping to provide a lot of opportunities for them to experiences things together that will help them feel more like a team who are connected to each other.  Even if that means they get to team up against Mr. A and myself sometimes, in the long run it will be good for them.

So far, I don’t anticipate any additional rivalry issues because L is adopted and M is not.  That doesn’t mean they won’t crop up, but so far, I haven’t seen any issues yet.  I hope that we have created an environment where being adopted isn’t seen as a second choice.   We just treat it like any other part of our lives and so far M doesn’t have any idea that being adopted might be a bad thing.  Also, we don’t have M watching any movies or shows that have adoption themes that might be negative, so she isn’t influenced in that way either.  At least not yet.

Along the same lines, Violet asks:

How did you prepare M for her little sister?

Honestly, I don’t think we did very much to prepare M.  We read this book, which I don’t think is particularly good.  We also checked out a few books from the library about new babies and bigger siblings.  The most useful thing we read was Beezus and Ramona, which we took with us to China.  While the story was a little over barely-four-years-old M’s head, I think she appreciated the fact that Ramona was a huge pain in her sister’s neck.  Looking back, it may have been the lack of preparation that led to M behaving like a maniac for the first two months after we came home from China.  

Or maybe not, because L was so genuinely needing our time and attention, M had to get the short end of the stick.  There was only so much of me to go around and L’s issues wiped me out.  One thing I think we did right was to keep M enrolled in the every day preschool she had already attended for 6 months.  She had a place where things stayed the same and where she could get away from L and the energy she required from all of us.   Mr. A and I also tried to make special time for each of us to spend alone with M and that seemed to really calm her down.   The final thing I recall is that we also tried to make sure that M didn’t have to share her things/space with the new baby, unless she really wanted to.  She already had to give up so much of our time, it didn’t seem fair to ask her to give up her stuff too.  Now, sharing is required more, but not when L first came home.

Ok, that is enough for tonight. More tomorrow!