Only Child Problems

Tonight my resolve to give Liam at least ONE sibling was strengthened even more than it has been. More than the desire to have another child to snuggle and love on, more than wanting to do the baby thing again and see them grow into amazing people... tonight it was about sharing and how an only child sees things.

You see... I have Only Child Problems. I don't like to share my space. My ideas are the best ones. I am the leader. I am the boss. And tonight, I got weirdly possessive about space in the bedroom. Dan's dresser has been sitting in the garage for a few months now. Many months. Since we moved in!

First it was about treating it for the mold on it from the old apartment. Then it was him wanting to wait for the back board to be shipped from Indiana, then it was about him saying he was going to refinish it, and then it was about MY stuff taking up too much space. (he changed his mind on refinishing...) and then tonight I finally got my stuff cleaned up and in theory we could move his dresser in tomorrow.

But it has to go on my side of the bedroom.

Wait... MY side? but really... it is a dresser. I am just as likely as him to heave a laundry basket on top of it and not put away the clothes for a week until I need the basket again for the next load of laundry.

I have a dresser now. He deserves to have one too, if for no other reason than to get his stuff out of the tupperware bins in the closet and give us more space for hanging things up.

BUT ITS MY SIDE OF THE BEDROOM!

Its MY kitchen and if I don't like where something is, I will move it. Forget that HE is the chef. (granted, I do most of the cooking at home....) It is MY back yard and if he wants to put in a plant I BETTER DAMN WELL LIKE THAT PLANT and I get the final say in where it goes. You get the idea....

I say how the living room looks, I say how Liam's room looks... I do not share my SPACE well. I can share food, I can share items (as long as they end up back where they started)...

Thankfully he usually has no major opinion one way or the other on most of this stuff and when he does we will battle it out and we sometimes find a way to agree, but more often than not I win because I can come up with a logical reason why it should be my way and he usually can not come up with that kind of logic on the fly. Or I win because I can see the Danger sign flashing in my head of Liam getting into something if he does it his way.

I told him once that even if we disagree on something if he can present to me a LOGICAL and well thought out reason why something should be a certain way I would be more likely to consider it. But he normally can't. So I end up winning.

I don't even know why there has to BE a winner. I don't know why we can not meet in the middle on more things. He can get just as stubborn as I can, but its not about his SPACE or where things are really.

But I think part of why he can be so easy going about things its that he had two younger brothers. And what do you wanna bet that a big part of his childhood was giving them things. Space, time, the seat on the couch where his feet were before they launched themselves onto that space... He is use to sharing his space because he never knew it any other way. 

I want Liam to be as selfless and sharing as Dan is, as children with siblings are. I am not selfless, I am not as generous as some others. I know this, I am working on it... but I think that some of it comes from being an only child and never having to share. It was all mine! There was no one else I needed to save the last cookie for, no one else I needed to share my room with or my toys. I could share well enough with friends because I knew they would be leaving at some point and then it was ALL MINE again.

Hopefully life will be kind and grant Liam a sibling so that 30 years down the road when he is married and his spouse wants to put their dresser in the bedroom he will not sit there on the bed and be peeved about it being on HIS half of the room and taking up wall space and have to mentally process that it really is no big deal and finally come to terms with it by writing a blog post about why being an only child made him into a semi-posessive little twerp.

At least I know this is a problem with me and I can work on it. Sometimes. Kinda.... UGH. MINE MINE MINE! AUUUUGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!