For all the hours Nate spends strapped into his car seat, riding along while I shuttle his siblings to school and ballet and playdates. And for all the hand-me-downs the kid has to wear, there are some real benefits to being the baby.
Contraband toys benefits.
It’s our little secret.
First, a little history. When Catie was four (the twins’ age now), and the twins were one, Catie was at school all morning. Which left me at home with two toddlers. Two restless, curious toddlers. We played inside and outside and in the cabinets and under the tables and with Daddy’s socks and in the laundry baskets and…you get the idea. The house was their playground.
Except one room. Catie’s room, with all her big sister possessions. All her pre-school construction paper and glitter masterpieces. All her hair bows and different kind of puzzles and all the treasures that were off-limits to the twins when she was around.
But when she left for school? And asked the twins to NEVER go into her room?
I wish I could say I respected that request. I wish I could say we honored her sense of ownership and kept her door closed and never touched her big sister stuff inside.
Yeah. Right.
After a few hours of playing in laundry baskets, there was only one place the twins wanted to be. You guessed it. In Catie’s room, among the contraband. Block towers she had built and warned them not to touch, and then forgotten. A real-live CD player. Books that were made of actual pages instead of stiff boards.
The twins would have a field day. I would take a nap under Catie’s bed while they explored with glee.
Now, three years later, the twins are at school all day. Catie is off tackling second grade.
And all those older siblings don’t leave only one room full of contraband.
Rooms and rooms of stuff that’s off-limits to Nate when they’re around.
GENERATIONS of toys and art projects and stuff.
The older kids are none the wiser that while they’re gone, Nate naps with Sam’s security blanket and pulls down shelf after shelf of Catie’s books and bangs Elisabeth’s dolls.
And that’s the benefit to being the baby.
