Warning: wordy, geeky post.

What makes us sometimes want to treat each of our children the same way? That whole fair game. The whole filled-in-baby books and equal amount of pictures for the first as well as for the last. I know not everyone thinks that way. Brett for instance has three 'baby' pictures from birth through 1st grade. He was the sixth out of six. In one breath I am telling my boys to "be fair (no one likes a cheater)" and then next I am telling them how "the world isn't fair kids, ho ho ho". Aiden did (once again with those darn questions) ask me the other day if I loved Brady as much as him? I totally answered him incorrectly. I was thrown completely off guard by his timing. He was riding his bike and I was trying to gather them all into the car, avoiding being late to wherever we were going. It was the end of the day, my patience was thinnest and 2 out of 3 were hungry and without naps. You get the picture. I told him I loved each of them the same. (Insert face that just tasted something icky). It doesn't sound that wrong does it, but I remember reading once (only some things stick out in my mind and this was one of them, and why the heck do we do so much reading on parenting, this generation ugh; oh and now I know why Aiden uses "heck") but I remember reading something about taking sibling competition out of things. Like when faced with a comparison in any situation, deal with it in a one-on-one approach. I liked that. I tucked it away for another time(s). And when I needed it, I instead blurted out the most fair answer. Fair to someone. Although I don't think Aiden wanted to hear that he was loved by me as much as I loved Brady... Whatever. (Aiden says that too.) This post and thought is getting too wordy I know, way too wordy for my parents I am sure. Feel free to only look at the pictures (as I usually do) and skim for an explaination if you want after seeing the pics.

My point. And no, I haven't lost sleep over this. Well, maybe the trying to keep my kids from too much therapy in their future by not making everything a competition. Sometimes we want to do the same thing for each of our children. For instance, a dorky posed picture of each one of them with a giant bear all at the same age, around 7 months.