Here, Did You Need This Back? (She Said, Plucking the Knife Out of Her Heart and Handing It Back)

So the other day we were doing our usual pre-workday morning wrangle (involving much rushing around, packing of things and juggling baby needs while simultaneously noodging and ignoring Eli). Eli had grudgingly gotten dressed and Josh had prepared him his favorite breakfast (bagel and cream cheese) and sat him down at the kitchen table to eat it before he left to go take a shower. I left Eli in the kitchen and went into the living room to feed the baby, who was starting to fuss, and within one minute Eli was in the living room with me, draping himself dramatically over the ottoman, complaining that he was lonely in the kitchen by himself, and why wouldn't anyone come keep him company? I told him I would as soon as I was done with the baby, and that Daddy was in the shower but that he'd be out in a few minutes too, and to please go keep eating because we had to leave soon (it always takes Eli a good long while to actually consume his breakfast...he has never been a quick eater). That's when Eli finally verbalized what no doubt has been churning around inside him for months now:

"How come the baby always gets more attention than me? I *never* get any attention. You never give me what I want."

I tried not to let Eli see me wince as the sharp, sharp knives of parental guilt slashed at my guts and embedded themselves in my heart.

I explained that the baby needed us to do things for him that he couldn't do on his own, but that Eli was a big boy who could help both himself and us with our morning tasks. I told him that I give him as much attention as I possibly can, and that I love him just as much as ever, but that the morning times were not a time for him to choose what he wanted to do or when he wanted to do it. I said a bunch of other stuff too, reasonable, mature, loving parental stuff that probably just sounded like "blablablablabla" to Eli, who really would have just preferred to hear "I'm sorry, here, let me just put the baby back in his playpen and get Daddy and then we'll spend a leisurely hour or two as focused, happy participants in whatever activity you choose."

I know this is a normal, appropriate and totally understandable reaction that all elder siblings must go through, and that Eli will get over it, and that he knows we love him and *do* try to give him what he wants. And as his wise preschool director pointed out to us in a parent-teacher conference earlier this week, once a kid can verbalize an issue, they're much closer to working it through. I'm going to try not to overreact to or buy too far into this kind of statement (just like I'm going to try reeeeeaaaally hard not to get hooked by "I hate you! You never let me do anything!" when he's a teenager). But it's been gnawing at me. I mean, he's not entirely wrong. He *does* get less attention now. We *do* have more distractions, and depend on his increasing independence and ability to take care of himself so that we can be freed up for other things (like taking care of the baby or doing necessary house chores...I'm not talking about sitting around drinking martinis here, tempting though that thought is sometimes). And of course we try to compensate and spend as much time as we can focusing on Eli and his wants, but it's a bleak fact of life that he'll also have to get used to his fall from only-child grace. Even if it wasn't his brother that was stealing what he considers "his" parental attention, he'd be losing it anyway as he got older and more independent (but then, of course, he could be the one controlling how and when to let go of that attention--and therein lies the rub, I think).

I'll be honest here, oh faceless and easily-confessed-to internet: I just don't know how much more of my now seriously fractured attention I can give Eli, much as I want to (and I do, I really do want to...this is my beloved first born child we are talking about here, the child whom I would, without hesitation, walk over hot coals to reach or step in front of a speeding train to save, if necessary). It's not a matter of not having enough love--the love is there, and it's true what they say that love is not a finite pie, but rather a rich unending well that keeps filling up. It really is a matter of attention, of focus. Of that, there really *is* only so much to go around, and like a Republican congressman, I've already trimmed way back on as many areas as I can (including paying attention to my friends, my pets, my husband, and myself). But my attention budget is still not balanced, and maybe it never will be. In fact I think I'm running up a sizable attention deficit (one might even say I've got an attention deficit disorder...badump dum!).

But what am I going to do about it? Attention doesn't just grow on trees, you know. I am already feeling pulled at so hard in so many directions I worry about breaking. I'm not sure there really is a solution to this attention deficit spending (if there was, someone would have written a best-selling self-help book about it by now, don't you think?). I think it's just something that we all constantly struggle with and then eventually learn to live with, until we just can't anymore and something (ourselves? our circumstances? our culture?) shifts.

Sigh. Conscious parenting: blessing and curse, curse and blessing. As always, it's late, and I'm out of brain space, and there are many things to be done before bed. I think I'll go ostrich now and stop thinking about it.