Saturday, June 18, 2011

Identity Crisis

For most people who have children I think it is pretty normal, for the mother anyway, to have some sort of identity crisis after your first kid is born.  That is probably part of what makes having kids so hard at first - you're either still trying to figure out who you are or have defined yourself pretty well, and then you give life to another human and have to totally forget who you've just discovered yourself to be so that you can focus on the infant life in front of you.  Sometimes you end up losing yourself and sometimes it just takes a while to redefine yourself and then you come out someone totally different on the other side of it.  It's awesome.  Since the babies are my 4th and 5th, I fortunately am not having an identity crisis this time around.  I don't have time for that.  However, Silas has decided to have one in my place.  At least he's getting it out of his system early in life.  It first started at the beginning of this month, fitting since he turned two just a few days ago.  We were at my parents house and they had taken the 3 older kids over to the river, which happened to be at a friend's house. She is going on about how cute Silas is and says to him:  "What's your name?"  to which he replies "Colin."  My mother relayed this to me and we had a nice laugh.  The following day he was looking at himself in a mirror and my mom asks him "Who is that?" to which he replies, "Colin."  So at this point, I'm thinking, this kid doesn't even know his name.  So I start asking him on a regular basis what his name is and he normally says either "Colin" or "5" which is how old Colin is.  So we start practicing.  "Your name is Silas.  What's your name?  Silas."  To which he would reply "Silas Colin" After a week of practicing, now when I ask him he usually replies:  "I don't know" or "Green" or something silly.  I think he's at the point now where he's trying to get a laugh. This morning, we were trying to get him to do something, I can't even remember at this point what it was, but it was something that he likes to do and that Ansley also likes to do.   So my mom (who was visiting us)  just remarked that he was like sissy.  His reply : "Like Colin."  I think its kinda sweet that he loves his older brother so much.  Colin doesn't seem to be irritated by it, yet; although when Silas was praying a few nights ago and said "Dear God. [Thank you for] Colin, and Colin, and Colin, and Colin, and Colin, and Colin..... " (until after about the fifteenth Colin when I cut him off and said "Amen.") Colin was getting a little annoyed because he wasn't praying for anything else, but I think that was more of a firstborn-you-have-to-pray-the-right-way irritation and not an irritation with his fan club. Anyway, I've been trying to figure out if we should be concerned about him, but I think I've just decided that he'll figure it out eventually.  Either that or steal Colin's identity.  

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