The Ultimate Sibling

At this point in her life, little R is about as close to an ultimate sibling as she is ever likely to get.  She is safely out of the baby phase, where cuddles, cuteness, and comic relief were about all she was good for.  To her siblings, that is.  And she's not quite old enough to do much damage when she fights.  Her so called punches don't really hurt all that much and usually generate more laughter than tears.  And she is VERY easily swayed according to the whims of the other kids.  She can be talked into most things, provided that a calm and reasonable tone of voice is used.  And in the event that a little extra incentive is needed, she will do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING for a single M & M.

But I don't think an M & M was needed to convince her to get into the toy bucket so her big brother could pile all the toys on top of her.  I think he just had to ask her nicely.  I find that most of the time, it's better to just not ask why the kids do the things they do.

She's always ready to zoom some sort of vehicle when J gets in his zooming moods.  Which is fairly often.

R truly enjoys playing with cars, with or without J.  But I do believe that she owes this particular passion entirely to J.  The older girls were never very interested in playing with cars, even though we always had them around.  But R's socialization has come predominantly from her brother rather than her sisters.  She has learned to love the things that he loves.  Hence the zooming and the cars.

She's also a fabulous accomplice when any of the kids want to run around the house, or zoom around the coffee table.  The pure joy she finds in running just makes it that much more fun for the other kids.

She's old enough to join in pretend play, weather it's blasting off to the moon or acting out one of their many, many role playing scenarios.  She does an excellent job when cast in a somewhat docile, I'll-do-anything-you-say-as-long-as-we're-having-fun type of a role.

R won't necessarily go where I tell her to go.  Especially if I'm doing something as mundane as trying to take her picture.  But she'll follow J anywhere.

Which usually results in some cute photos.  Win-win situation.

This girl also creates a fair amount of mischief.  Which often allows the older kids to get away with things they might not normally get away with.  Something they really should be eternally grateful for.

And R gives the BEST hugs.  She's not discriminating with them like J is.  He only hugs me, and sometimes R.  But R simply loves to cuddle . . . with all of us.  She's recently invented something she calls the "hug machine" where she walks around with her arms spread wide open and chants, "Hug machine.  Hug machine," in a robotic voice.  She continues to do this until she's able to catch someone in her arms and give them an enormous hug.

So I've been thinking that all of her siblings are tremendously lucky to have this little girl in their lives.  But especially J, with whom she spends most of her time.  And considering the fact that J doesn't really socialize very well with anyone outside of the family, R turns what might otherwise be a void in J's life into something full of joy.

Who can ask for anything more than that from a sibling?