1.10: Growing Pains

The first years of parenting were hard. The girls were always crying and just as one went down for a nap the other got up and woke up the third. Penny and I were always exhausted beyond belief.

But yet, we could solve all of the problems our kids were having with relative ease. That is no longer true.

Looking back I think I can pinpoint that is all started to change around Teresa’s birthday.

It was, itself, a cute and fun day. Teresa loved the being the center of attention from Uncle Gunther and all of mommy and daddy’s friends.

As Penny and I work to build a family and still have our careers it becomes more and more rare that we have company over, so whenever we do get together with friends the girls have feel like they’re the ones being treated and work to steal all the attention for themselves.

And sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming. I remember just before we cut the cake poor Teresa was already pooped and crashed right on the playground.

We managed to wake her up for her big moment and she reveled in the attention as we all sang to her.

But not everyone was happy that Teresa alone was the center of attention. Now that they are closer in age, Calvin and Teresa bump heads in a way that they never did before. And that’s the reason I say this birthday was what started the change.

As Calvin got older he ran more and more to his father. I have to give Wolfgang some credit because he was taking an interest in Calvin. Although I couldn’t stand having in as a part of my life and I didn’t exactly trust his ideas about parenting.

But Wolfgang became the only one who could forge any kind of true relationship with Calvin. Although it was more a friendship, than a responsible parent-child relationship.

Wolfgang would be claiming to take Calvin to the museum, but neither of them seemed to be the “museum browsing types.”

So I always suspected that there were other reasons.

But it was something I no longer went to Penny about because if ever we argued it was about Calvin.

Penny always thought that I was too hard on him, and maybe I was. That feeling of nothing being good enough for him as a father or responsible male figure nags me still to this day. Which is why I wanted to foster the relationship between Calvin and Wolfgang. But if anything it made me more bitter towards me.

When they were younger I could always look to the girl to remind me that maybe I wasn’t so bad of father. Each one was wonderfully happy baby and especially Teresa and Vivian especially (being very close in age) always played together well.

Although as they got older even that bond sometimes was tried. As anyone would expect with three young girls all around each other’s age and all around each other’s stuff all the time.

But, and I feel so terrible to say it, Penny and I both came to realize that Scarlett was just…evil. She was so mean to everyone, but especially to her sister.

And at first we thought maybe because Vivian and Teresa are so close in age that she feels left out and acts out to get their attention.

And maybe that is what is happening.

But that seems to be manifesting itself in a really cruel streak.

Where she just wants to see her siblings cry. And Penny and I have tried everything. We continually punish Scarlett when she acts this way, we try to dote on her just a little bit more than everyone else.

She does get along with one of her siblings, however, Calvin. And (although I’ll never tell Penny) I think it’s because he’s a bit evil too.

If only I could somehow have some impact on him.