Paying Attention to the Middle

J turned 9 last week, in case you missed it on my social media.  I’m sorry. I realized a while ago that Matt and I are those people who post too many pictures of their vacation and their kids. I’ve cut back a bit, but I’m not going to stop all the way because a) I figure if people don’t want to see it, they can always block it b) we’re not as bad as a lot of my FB friends, which I feel gives me permission to continue status quo. 

Back to J….My parents sent over an envelope of some older pictures they found.  In it, was this picture. 

Excuse the quality of the picture of the picture. My hair makes up for it.

I spent a lot of time looking at it.  For one, my hair looks really good (that’s the short-lived glory of post pregnancy hair). But the other reason that I gazed at this picture for so long is that I do not remember J at this age- at all.  He’s two in this picture, but when looking at it, I feel an odd kind of detachment; Oh, that must be Jake when he was two, and I wait for memories to accompany the thought, but none come. I took the picture to 9, who’s visiting home for a few weeks, and he says he doesn’t remember J looking like this either.  I showed the girls, which included my niece who was over to play, and they all said “ That’s J?” They couldn’t believe it.  Even Roo said “When did J look like this?” And I answered, “When you were three months old, baby. Don’t worry if you can’t remember.”

Me and Roo the same day the other pic was taken. (Really just posting this pic so you can have another look at how awesome my hair was.)

Nobody in this household remembers this phantom child. My poor J. Thinking back to that time period, 9’s mom was still with him, so he spent half his time with her, which means that for half of the time in our house, it was the three littles.  PG was a grown-up preschooler, Roo was a brand new baby, and there was J, stuck in the middle.

I never gave much thought to supposed “middle child syndrome” (I always thought it was something my little sister made up to get attention. Ha!), but I suppose there’s merit to it.  I remember PG as a toddler, because she was my only child at the time.  I remember Roo as a toddler, because she was my last baby.  But J’s toddlerhood was sandwiched between a very colicky infancy and the birth of a new sister, with the time in between being very short. I can’t remember so much as his favorite toy. Is that why my boy forever switches off between two basic moods, “happy” and “pissed off”? Is he aware that early in life he was mostly overshadowed by his big sister’s accomplishments and his little sister’s role as baby of the family?

The thing is, while you may be thinking how awfully sad this is, I don't beat myself up about it. I mean... I do feel guilt, but I don’t give it much leeway because any family who has three kids in four years is just doing the best it can through the insanity. And it is insanity.  I’m glad it is over. I’m a much better mom to older children than I am to younger ones.(Some moms can handle the overwhelming avalanche of needs that multiple small children have without  feeling like Mommy Dearest most days. I am not one of them. I do better now because my house no longer feels like a funny farm.)
  
It’s just that it went by and I forgot-we all forgot- to pay much attention to the kid in the middle, the one who wasn’t learning to read or needing bottles. I didn’t know then, to take the time and tell myself to remember conversations with him, or books we read, or times he made us laugh.  That stuff all happened, but it’s not in my long-term. I have to sit at the computer and dig through picture files to find the memories. 

He looks happy though, right? He doesn’t look too neglected? 

I wish I could remember.   

Now that he’s older- they’re all older, of course, but especially now him- I am much better about paying attention. I’m taking mental pictures- him grinning at me from under his baseball cap with sweat dripping down the sides of his face, after hours playing his favorite game in the hot sun.  Or, he and his sisters playing Legos together in their pajamas, his skinny legs wrapped in his red and green striped elf pajamas that he begged us for last Christmas. And him again, catching my eye, making sure that I’m watching when he cannonballs into our pool. 

And this time, I am. 

I’m paying attention.