Siblings. I Don't Get Them.

I am an only child.

That means a bunch of things, but mostly it means that I'm mystified by the intense bond that exists between Lucy and Edie. I am also pleased and envious and in awe, but mostly, I'm just mystified.

This all started with one pink baby stroller. The kind you can buy for $8.99 at most toy stores and you wheel your doll around in it. We had one. It was originally Lucy's but as Edie got older, she used it more and more. Most of the time they just shared it. Edie is baby doll obsessed and she wanted her own, so for Valentine's Day I got her a little pink one, with pink and white daisies. It was nice.

Now, there were two. Two girls. Two strollers. It was perfect. One stroller for each girl. The only child in me understood this. It was fairness of the highest order.

No child was left behind.




This is where being an only child is a liability. I thought everything was cool.

But the new stroller had apparently prettier designs and better flowers, more posey than daisy, really, and it was clean and unblemished by dirt and stains and years of use. This made all the difference because now, Lucy who immediately realized she was going to get the crap daisy stroller, all of a sudden developed an obsession with having her own new, clean, unblemished posey stroller.

This is funny because two minutes before she didn't give a rats ass about strollers or pushing them around. Go figure.


So, Lucy asked me to buy her a new one and I did because I feared that healthy psychological developments were riding on this, and I am a stupid only child, and so I have no sense of what is right or wrong in this situation. But of course, they didn't have the exact one that I bought Edie and so I think, well, one pink stroller is as good as another pink stroller.

Even as I write this I realize I am an idiot.

And it turns out, Lucy was fine with the new pink stroller. Very fine, in fact. It was new and fresh and unsullied by previous doll play. It was perfect. It had pink and blue pansies. She was ecstatic.

All hail the mighty mother who solves conflict and disputes at every turn...But wait, Edie's lip is quivering. She's crying. Crap.

See, here's where I start to realize that Edie was crying because she now thought her new stroller had become the old crap stroller and Lucy's new one was the better one. And then, Lucy started crying because she was afraid I would take away her new pink and blue pansy stroller and give it to Edie because blue is Edie's favorite color and this means in sibling world that Edie has dibs on all blue, blueish or blue-related items.


So, everyone was crying. And clutching the stroller with the blue and pink pansies.

In case you aren't keeping up - I have two kids, both crying and three strollers, three pink, two brand new and perfectly clean, one with pink posies, one with pink daisies and another with pink and blue pansies.

And both the girls are tearfully looking to me for some kind of solution.

But I've got nothin'. Because I don't get this. I am an only child. This was my childhood - I got stuff. I liked it. I never had to share. I never had to be territorial over my stuff. It was all mine. This, of course, made my adulthood jarring and difficult, but, whatever. None of it can help me now.


And it's not like this only happens once in awhile - I had the exact same thing happen last week only that time it was a couple of Barbie battery-operated tooth brushes, one with a big "B' on the side that was crap and the other with flowers on the side that was God's gift to dentistry. And the Duane Reade in our neighborhood only had ones with B's, so I spent an entire afternoon trolling the stores for the elusive toothbrush and dragging behind me two very worried looking children.

Seriously, somebody s'plain it to me.

xo YM


PS: Yes, my children are wearing underpants as hats.