A couple nights ago, bedtime went sideways. Or maybe the normal ways which is at least slanted. Mouse and Cleo were bouncing off the walls - the kind of manic silly-play that's 30 seconds from ending in tears or blood. I stepped in a couple times. We got teeth brushed, got PJs on. I stress-sweat through my t-shirt. Then I asked Cleo to hang back for a sec.
I told her (calmly, I thought) that I needed calm bodies at book time. That she and her brother had been making some not-safe body choices and I needed her to be calm in her body.
She went into her room and collapsed in tears. Because she is ALWAYS calm at book time. And her dad backed her up. She's a huge helper at book time. She stays calm, she does the right thing, she's good at this part. And I didn't mean to undercut that. But I did. A little bit.
I gave Mouse a similar talking-to afterward, partially to show Cleo it wasn't just about her. But the order mattered. Of course it did.
Here's the thing. Mouse is a 3-year-old in a hitting phase. This is just what being 3 is. His brain is doing exactly what a 3-year-old brain does, which is operate without a frontal lobe and occasionally (/regularly) smack his sister in the face (back/arm/ankle) for no reason. I am not worried about this. He will stop hitting. I'm pretty sure. Fingers crossed. Please.
Cleo is 5 and a half. She is so competent that my brain genuinely believes she could run the house solo for a weekend. She is articulate and funny and bossy and helpful and she reads the room better than most adults I know. So when the chaos starts, I look at her first. I hold her accountable first. I expect her to be the one to regulate. To not egg him on. To know better.
But she's 5. She also doesn't have a fully developed frontal lobe. Hers is just slightly more developed than his, and I'm treating that gap like it's meaningful.
I know this pattern. I was the oldest.
Most of us millennials were parentified to some degree and just called it "being responsible." Being the oldest meant having your shit together even when nobody else did. It meant your problems were smaller by default because you could handle them. It meant you didn't get to be the messy one with highs and lows. And it's the best (and maybe in some moments the worst) thing about me. I wouldn't trade being an older sister for anything. It's core to who I am. I adore my siblings. But I know what it costs to always be the one who's supposed to know the answer, know better, do better, even when you're also just a kid.
And I'm watching myself put that on Cleo.
Not on purpose. Not dramatically. Just in the small moments. In who I correct first. In the assumption that she should be the one to de-escalate. In pulling her aside before him.
I don't want to protect her from being the oldest. That's not the goal. She's going to be an incredible big sister (she already is) and I don't want to short-change her of that by bubble-wrapping the hard parts. She's her own human, becoming her own person, and somewhere in my brain I know it's not nearly as in my control as I think it is.
But how I react to her IS in my control. What I hold her accountable for, and how, and when. That part's mine.
The kindest thing I can do for Cleo isn't lowering the bar. It's remembering she's five while I hold it.
And the kindest thing I can do for myself is stop pretending I've already figured this out. I haven't. I'm the oldest, and I'm still learning that being the oldest doesn't mean you have to have your shit together all the time either. And that moms get to mess up. And they get to apologize. And that matters too.