Entry No. 3: Two Girls, Two Ways

I am raising a five-year-old and a two-year-old. Both girls. They share a bedroom, and they are wild, and they are so much fun.

My oldest is a girly girl. Dresses, dress-up, princesses. Her whole world is pink. My youngest wants nothing to do with a dress. She wants to be outside, rolling around in the grass, playing rough, deep in some imaginary world only she can see.

They love to play together. They also fight a lot. Both of those things are true at the same time, all day long.

My oldest loves being a big sister. She just started kindergarten, and we are beginning our homeschool journey, with a two-year-old right there learning alongside her. Now the girls are starting sports too: ballet for my oldest, soccer for my youngest. Of course.

I never expected that raising two girls would mean raising them two different ways. One needs softer tones. The other needs discipline and structure, or she would run completely wild. I am learning to be a different mother to each of them, sometimes in the same five minutes. None of this surprises me, really. Each chapter with them was hard, and each one was different.

Two very different pregnancies, and two very different children. Fire and ice. Earth and water.