{"id":1610,"date":"2006-08-15T21:01:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-16T04:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/15\/destructor-no-more\/"},"modified":"2006-08-15T21:01:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-16T04:01:00","slug":"destructor-no-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/15\/destructor-no-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Destructor No More"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kate is 14 weeks old today.<span style=\"\"> <\/span><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/1600\/IMG_2237.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 413px; height: 275px;\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/400\/IMG_2237.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Will is 1 week shy of being 2 years and 9 months old.  <a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/1600\/IMG_2080.0.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 413px; height: 274px;\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/400\/IMG_2080.0.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">One of the biggest surprises of the past 14 weeks is that Will has not tried to destroy his sister.<span style=\"\">  <\/span>I felt certain that we would see some type of aggression or jealousy from him.<span style=\"\">  <\/span>The warnings of this behavior line each chapter on sibling preparation and the anxiety over it put me on high alert in Kate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early weeks.<\/p>\n<p>  <a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/1600\/IMG_2291.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 413px; height: 273px;\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/400\/IMG_2291.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>  <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Now am I not so guarded.<span style=\"\">  <\/span>Sure, Will has his moments.<span style=\"\">  <\/span>For example, Will is very clear about when and where Kate can use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153his\u00e2\u20ac\u009d things.<span style=\"\">  <\/span>There are times when Kate sitting in Will\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bean bag or using his blanket are Not Okay.<span style=\"\">  <\/span>But there are other times when he willfully extends the use of these items to his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153baby sister.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span style=\"\">  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/1600\/IMG_2354.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 413px; height: 274px;\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/400\/IMG_2354.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">A friend of mine was visiting and was shocked to see Will jump up to Kate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s side when she woke up from a nap on her playmate and cried out.<span style=\"\">  <\/span>He rushed to her, found her pacifier, and put it gently in her mouth, all the while cooing to her, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay sweet girl.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<span style=\"\">  <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--><!--[endif]--><o:p><\/o:p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are you sure 2-year olds can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel empathy?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She asked me.<span style=\"\">  <\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Because THAT sure looks like empathy to me!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>What shocks me about Will&#8217;s practice of soothing Kate is that I&#8217;m so used to it that sometimes I actually wait for <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">him <\/span>to attend to her, forgetting that my 2-year old does not yet qualify as a suitable babysitter.  His level of helpfulness betrays the truth of his age.<br \/><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/1600\/IMG_2471.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/2787\/660\/400\/IMG_2471.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>He delights at the attention Kate gives him.  &#8220;She&#8217;s smiling at me!&#8221; he proudly declares.  Kate dutifully responds by giving him rapt attention whenever he is nearby.  The draw of Will trumps all other distractions, food included; she will stop everything to soak in her big brother.<br \/><span style=\"\"><span style=\"\"><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kate is 14 weeks old today. Will is 1 week shy of being 2 years and 9 months old. One of the biggest surprises of the past 14 weeks is that Will has not tried to destroy his sister. I felt certain that we would see some type of aggression or jealousy from him. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1610\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.coldspaghetti.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}