Five Is The Loneliest Number

My adorable little sister is spending some time with us. I love having her here, there is only one small problem: all of the kids fight over her. Brooke comes up to me complaining that she's getting left out. Then, Russell mysteriously complains that Kelsey & Brooke are leaving him out. I'm not sure how it's possible for them both to be left out at the same time, but we've apparently mastered the art. Tatton & Kelsey are basically the same age, so they play together a lot. Brooke & Kelsey are the only girls so they play together a lot too. Lane doesn't always fit into that equation, so he throws a fit about how nobody plays with him. Russell is typically happy playing with the "leftover" kid who is also left out. That is, until Kelsey asks that kid to play with her and Russell gets dropped like a hot potato and he gets his feelings hurt and decides to hurt whoever's feelings HE can. See what I'm saying? There's so much social drama in this house that if I didn't know better I would assume I was in a junior high.

I can only conclude that I knew what I was doing when I had my tubes tied. Many, many times since then I have regretted doing it, but not when we have a 5th kid here. I'm not big on uneven numbers. For some bizarre reason people always pair off and someone gets left out. I remember when I was growing up there were 3 of us girls that were the same age in my neighborhood. You would think that it would be the more the merrier, but we were incapable of all getting along at the same time. I would frequently run home crying to my mom that Emily and Alicia were playing together & wouldn't let me play with them. Before you feel sorry for me, I have to admit, probably more frequently I was the little brat saying, "No we're the best friends and you can't play!" It seemed perfectly natural to be so cruel when I was a kid. Now, I can't imagine acting that way. I'm hoping that means that my kids will grow out of this too. I don't know how much longer I can take, "Get out! This is our fort!" and "Mommmm- Kelsey and I were watching this movie first and we don't want them to watch it with us!" I mean, seriously? Fighting over sitting in the same room staring at the TV in unison? You've got to be kidding me.

This is, of course, largely due to the fact that Kelsey is a novelty. She's a visitor that is here often enough for everyone to have bonded with her but not often enough for the newness of her being around to wear off. The times that she's been here for more extended periods of time the tug-of-war seems to subside and we kind of find our natural rhythm. My kids also do this when we babysit a baby or toddler too. Every one wants to hold the baby and heaven forbid anyone shake the rattle or talk baby talk better than anyone else. So, I suppose it's not that having 5 kids is awful. I guess if we had another we would acclimate just like the times before. Right now though, it seems like 5 is the loneliest number that there ever was.