lately, I realised that I haven’t been writing much about a particular kid in my life. And why not?
dun look so forlorn!
I do feel that I would be writing a repeat of what I went through with Oliver. But is it bad to write a repeat? It wasn’t bad, but it was tedious. It didn’t help that Quentin spoke more with his body language than with words. It was harder to describe what he was trying to say. And you know when I said that ‘being second doesn’t mean you get any lesser‘? I was wrong. I tried to make sure he didn’t get any lesser, but he did.
I often told friends that when I compared Quentin with Oliver, Quentin was pretty much a year behind Oliver at the same age. That we babied him and just let Oliver lead him. I didn’t read as much books with him. I didn’t sing as much with him. I didn’t play as much with him. From the point he was born, his time with me was halved. He had to share it with Oliver. It was hard to give him full attention with the other clamouring for the same amount of attention. We have one on one time when Oliver is at school for 3 hours, but about half of that 3 hours is spent for his nap, 30 mins on lunch, 30 mins spent sending and picking Ollie up from school, which means..we get 30 mins of time awake.
Sometimes we get an hour together when I need to run errands. He loves taking the bus and lately we would take a bus to the mall nearby, take a walk maybe to the library or grab a snack together before heading home. It was only lately that I discovered a lot more about this kid.
With the impending arrival of Sarah (in 3 months time!), I decided that we needed to set the boundaries for Quentin, the same boundaries we set for Oliver before Quentin was born. And then I realised my mistake. Quentin had developed into a brat. Well, not an absolute brat. When he was in a good mood, he was the sweetest, cutest 2.5yo in my eyes (mom’s biasness okay) But when he chose to..OMFG (excuse my language), it is a battle of patience.
More often than not, I end up giving him what he wants because it is exhausting to battle with him. And boy, is he persistent. Example, Oliver got to go on a staycation with his grandparents and he didn’t. It was a 20 mins ride home and he whinged alllllll the way home. NON-STOP. It was doing my head in. Argh. Imagine that everyday, each time he didn’t get that way. There were days where I really couldn’t..just couldn’t tolerate it. And I ended up yelling A LOT at him, because it was really harder to get the point across, especially when he couldn’t communicate as well as his brother.
It didn’t help that I couldn’t carry him because I was pregnant. It would send him further down the trail of that tantrum. It was harder to soothe him. But there are days where he was okay to sit on the sofa and be held by me. Phew.
There are daily moments of him not accepting ‘no’ for an answer. He would ‘challenge’ you by saying ‘no’ to what you request of him to do. He would randomly hit his brother. Whilst I could threaten Oliver with the confiscation of his toys, I could only threaten Quentin by….withholding food WTH. You ever hear parents threaten this way anot??
‘if you don’t pick up the puzzles, no food for you!’ hahahahhaa. Okay, is like damn sad lar. How to starve a kid right.
But I had to try because I had a time limit (not the starving, that never happened okay!). And I knew that if we didn’t do something now, I was going to pay for it later when Sarah comes along. I started reasoning with him instead of yelling. We had a little bit more of a routine. I would accede to simple requests and be firm in saying ‘No’ to him. It really brings back the days where we started saying ‘No’ to Oliver before he turned 2. A lot of tears and frustrations involved. Fortunately, Quentin is going through a language explosion and can speak in short sentences now.
Gonna make this post a reminder to myself to make sure that Quentin really doesn’t get any less as a second kid, and as a middle kid.