There is a great responsibility for firstborns to love.
Think about it.
I was thinking about Sage. For her whole existence up to a point she will have shared, to some extent, the love and affection she receives with Ivy. Does this mean Sage is loved any less? No, absolutely not. She is endlessly loved.
That said, she has shared her love with Ivy.
It made me think, yet again, of all the singular love poured out on Ivy in her first 21 months.
It made me reflect on the love I received in the 45 months before Adie joined our family.
How did that shape me?
Given the measure of love and affection I received from two loving parents, singularly focused attention and love for 45 months, does that increase my responsibility to love?
Given this theory, I think firstborns have a higher responsibility to love. With great power comes great responsibility. There is no greater power in the world than love.
Maybe this is why the firstborn gets the birthright (wink face).
Thos of us who have experienced love, been given love, have felt love, it’s important for us to share that. There are so many in the world that don’t grow up in a loving household. If you’re reading this and you did grow up in a loving household, you’ve been given an advantage in life worth more than a huge inheritance. You’ve been given a huge leg up in this life if you were born into a loving home.
Share it.
Don’t waste the gift you’ve been given.
Now, here’s some food for thought to counter my “firstborn love theory” (Trademark pending) –
Other ideas to consider, did my love actually expand with the arrival of Adie (my little sister) because I had experienced love and now I got to share it with my little sister? Did my first learning experience of giving love outside of my parents who already loved me so much grow my capacity to love even more? Did getting to love somebody who couldn’t do anything for me help my capacity to love, learning at a young age to love somebody without getting anything in return? Does that add to my responsibility as the firstborn?
Or is Adie’s capacity to love greater than mine because she was born into loving a 3 person family, unlike myself? Does that make Easton’s (youngest of 6) capacity to love 3x mine since he was born into a family 3 times bigger than the one I was born into? How does this balance with my personal capacity to love expanding every time a new baby joined our family?
Love.
We need to think about it more.
Which leads to the ultimate, and powerful question: is love in limited supply?
We all have an infinite capacity to love. I don’t believe there is any limit on how we can love. I think God is our example in this. Think about how much He loves you. Whether you come from a loving household or not, whether you’re the firstborn of 10, an only child, an orphan, the youngest of 2, and all examples in between, you have a divine capacity to love. Divine. Your Father is God. He loves you. Your capacity to love is infinite. Use it. Share it.
Epilogue
The above post was written in May of 2023. I kid you not, as I opened it to review and post in 2026, Beth sent me a video with a text attached.
The text read: “Wren kept asking, “Where Ivy?” Then Ivy came down and Wren waved and said, “Good morning Ivy!” And gave her a hug. But Ivy was still waking up a bit so when she sat down to eat, Wren came over, gave her another gentle hug, and started gently rubbing Ivy’s back. It’s like Wren is teaching them how to love.”
I replied, “Reminding them.”
And Beth said, “Blog post!”
She knows me too well. But I didn’t realize I was about to post this!
We’ve been struggling a little with Ivy and Sage being gentle and loving with Wren as they get older. They are the older sisters, a lot more rambunctious and a lot more physical. Sometimes Wren messes up their “set ups” (toys they’ve setup). Wren wants to be with them and play with them but she’s very destructive. They struggle sharing with Wren. Wren is still little. So they’ve had a hard time.
But I know that Ivy was sent here to be an example as the oldest sister. I know that Sage was sent here to be a peacekeeping, independent, strong second daughter to keep everyone connected. Maybe Wren was sent to remind us all how to love. Maybe she’s meant to teach us to be a little more patient with one another.
Sage is very much forming full sentences now (callback to last post). She has a lot to say. A really neat thing to see is Sage’s adoration for her big sister. She follows Ivy around everywhere she goes. She’s started wearing Ivy’s slides to school, even though they’re way too big for her, because they’re Ivy’s old shoes.
Sage is still shy. She’s getting better, but still has her moments. She’ll open up to people rarely. If a stranger is around she becomes super coy. She’s gotten especially better with family and people she sees regularly. But once she knows you and trusts you, she is full Sagey Sunshine. She is a linchpin in nursery at church. She walks in and gets other kids toys. It’s weird because despite being shy she likes to sing as loudly as she can during sacrament meeting in church. The only way to get her to be quiet is to tell her everyone is watching her because she’s being too loud. She immediately quiets down and starts looking around. I hope I’m not irreparably damaging her psyche.
Ivy’s growth and transformation since Wren was born is extraordinary. She still has her toddler moments. but overall she seems like a new person. A new maturity has immerged. She is smotheringly loving with Wren.
Ivy and Sage are constantly asking to hold Wren. They love her.
I’ve been telling people the oldest child has to grow up fast, the middle child has to learn to survive, and the youngest child will be the toughest. Wren has been mauled since the second she got home. If you look closely at her eyes you can’t help but see a, “I left heaven for this?” Look on her face.
It’s interesting watching this dynamic develop between Ivy, Sage, and Wren, and then think about myself and my siblings. I think about how quickly I had to grow up, how Adie followed me around, and how much I used to beat up Garrick and Dresdan.
Recently Garrick sent me a video. It was a guy talking about his older brother. He was saying how he was grateful for his older brother because he watched his older brother take all the speed bumps so he didn’t have to. That meant a lot to me.
Now I’m seeing Ivy already start taking the speed bumps that Sage and Wren won’t have to.
Transition into a heartwarming sister story.
Bedtime is of course an adventure/disaster/struggle pretty much every night. Ivy and Sage share a room. Most nights they lay down, all seems quiet, then Sage gets out of bed, turns on the light, climbs onto Ivy’s bed, and they start playing. This would be okay, except that it turns into tears and pain almost 100% of the time if left unchecked.
One night we put Ivy and Sage to bed a little earlier than usual. I watched on the monitor as Sage turned on the light and got into Ivy’s bed. I went upstairs and opened the door. Sage immediately reacted by starting to frantically scoot towards the edge of the bed, as she was used to me angrily coming in to tell her to get back in bed. This night I decided to give another message. I told Sage she could stay with Ivy as long as they did calm and quiet activities like read and tell stories. Sage got so excited. The smile on her face. She scooted back toward Ivy and started quietly clapping with the biggest grin on her face.
Ivy said, “Okay, I be just a little crazy.”
I told her no crazy at all. She said, “Just this much crazy,” and showed her forefinger and thumb pressed tightly together indicating a tiny bit of crazy. I reiterated that there was to be no crazy. I left them to quietly play. They ended up peacefully going to sleep.
Bedtime, sitting and playing quietly together, turning on the light, I’ve learned every so often it’s okay to just let it go. It eventually ends up in Sage crying, but at that point she’ll just get in bed and go to sleep. Ivy will usually lie down quietly facing her lamp going through her books and audio sleep stories.
We recently moved. The days during the move were…hard. It was difficult for the girls. I could tell. It’s interesting how our personalities, the things people don’t see, get passed onto our children. I could sense my girls feeling unsettled because I felt unsettled.
I didn’t recognize Ivy and Sage during the move. They were not themselves. In the midst of this chaos, after they went to sleep, I had to write as I do every night. I came back to this post to continue on it.
Writing about them was just what I needed. I re-read this in progress post and it reminded me of the normal disposition of my girls. This wasn’t them.
I came back and read this –
I was in the car with Ivy on a long drive. I was zoned out, in my own head.
Suddenly Ivy said something to me. I just responded automatically without even thinking about what she said, “Yeah, Ivy.”
Then I processed what she said. “The moms on the bus go beep beep beep.”
Once I processed it, I realized Ivy was making our classic joke, saying something on the bus does something it doesn’t actually do.
I cracked up and told Ivy she got me, and that it was really funny.
She was silent so I didn’t know if she was over it because I took too long.
I looked in the rearview mirror and she was sitting in her car seat with a smug grin on her face.
“I made Dad laugh,” she said just loud enough for me to hear.
Gosh I love these girls so much and I’ll try not to turn this Ivy and Sage moments post into a parenting post but… parenting is so hard. All the cliches – there is no playbook for this, I don’t know what I’m doing, etc.
I am an apprentice parent. And who am I an apprentice to?
The Father of the universe. What an honor. I know I’ve written about this before but how could He possibly entrust me – so incredibly flawed and faulty – to care for these precious souls?
Anyways, back on to the positive, funny, and uplifting moments of parenting two amazing girls.
Sage is crazy in the pool. Ivy as a baby had a semblance of this behavior before she got old enough to know better, but it was nothing like Sage. If we’re sitting on a step in the pool, Sage will repeatedly walk to the edge of the step and dive out into the water as far as she can. She’s not just stepping off the edge, she is diving. She’ll do one of two things at this point. She will either curl up into a ball or she will stretch out completely like she’s trying to reach the other end of the pool. It goes without saying we watch her very closely in and near the pool.
My family likes to go cliff jumping at the lake. It’s one of our favorite activities. Looks like Sage is going to be my cliff jumper. Ivy will too, but Sage seems to have an innate desire for danger.
As a kid I hated roller coasters. Hated. I would be peer-pressured to go on rides, and I would hate it. I remember my cousin Sarah loving roller coasters and having the feeling that I needed to toughen up. My parents now say it was Adie getting old enough to ride roller coasters that made me start embracing them. Now there’s nothing I love more than thrill rides and thrill activities. Roller coasters, sky diving, cliff jumping – these are my favorite things to do. If you told my 8-year-old self I’d grow up and my three favorite things would be roller coasters, jumping out of an airplane, and doing a gainer off a 35-foot cliff, I’d probably have thought that unlikely. It’s interesting how those around us influence us so much, sometimes for the better.
Like I said, I think Sage is going to be a natural cliff-jumper. Ivy may see that and become a cliff-jumper as well.
Ivy does already love the lake, though. Let the record show.
There’s a mini battle Beth and I have had the last two summers when we visit Las Vegas. Beth doesn’t want Ivy to go to the lake with me and my family. I always think it goes without saying that she’s going.
I kind of understand Beth’s reservations.
I understand that Ivy is little, it can be the slightest bit dangerous if we don’t watch her closely (which we do), it’s hot, open water, etc.
On the other hand, Ivy has to come to the lake with us!
Beth’s main concern I know is that I’m not fully engaged in parenthood when at the lake. Hard to watch your daughter while you’re leaping off cliffs. That said, when I’m not jumping off cliffs, there’s nothing I want more than to be sitting with Ivy on a boat, a kayak, or swimming with her.
When we finally did take Ivy to the lake for the first time, she loved it. She spent 8 hours at the lake, took a little cat nap in the shade while cruising around in a boat, went home, drove to St. George, and proceeded to stay up all night. Ivy’s a lake girl.
One last funny Ivy story and Sage story to conclude this post.
Ivy the other day started to say, “We’re going to do Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and Christmas.” As I was starting to think to myself, ‘Wow, how’d she know the order of holidays? My girl is growing up..’ Ivy concluded, “We’re going to do it backwards this year.” That made me chuckle.
As I mentioned, we moved. The new neighborhood is full of little kids under the age of 9. Coming from essentially a retirement community at our condo, that’s been great.
The other day Ivy and Sage were sitting in the grass playing with a new friend. Ivy was talking a lot, telling this new friend stuff. Sage, still her coy and quiet self at times, was repeating everything Ivy was saying, just extremely quiet. So Ivy would say, “This is how you make rock people” and Sage would whisper, “how..make.. rock people.”
No Coincidences 