Madge Monday

This weekend Madge didn’t go out of the house even once. I think the vacation took it out of her or something. The rain didn’t help, of course.
Still, it was cute. We merely took turns staying in with the kids. (Coco came with me on a few shopping trips.)

Every once in a while, blogs or emails include things like “ten books that most changed my life” or some such thing. We got a few books on birth order from the library and I think they’re going to change my/our attitude towards dealing with Madge, the first born. (Neither Julie and I are first born, so we think just saying “lighten up” will help. But it appears we might have to be more careful about our approach.) It’s no book in particular that’s doing the trick, just looking at them in general. Interesting stuff. Fun, too, in a glossy-magazine pop-psychology kind of way (lists, tests, advice, wannabe humorous phrasings and slogans, but still).
Of course there’s always the-rock-and-the-hard-place advice. First, they say first-borns are jealous of attention paid to younger siblings. Then, they say that the younger siblings hound them too much and need to be removed from the first-borns, especially when the older friends are over. But how do you do that without paying more attention to the younger siblings?
Which leads me to another influential book, Parenting with Duck Tape.