The Dethroning of the Queen

When Angela was a tiny baby, I started referring to her as "The Queen". She was, you know! She was the only girl out of the five kids in the house. He much older big brothers adored her, but while nobody catered to her every whim, she certainly was adored, as any queen should be.

We probably did some serious damage with all of that.

When Angela was five her dad and I divorced, and we went from a family of 7 to a family of 4 in the house. This break up was devastating on all of the kids, with all of the kids suffering the damage in different ways. But it didn't stop there...when Angela was 7 the other two brothers who lived with us, who were now now 14 and 16, decided to move to their father's. (He is NOT Angela's dad. Confusing, I know...just go with it.) Angela was now an only child.

I remember being the same age, and having the same age difference between my siblings that Angela had with hers, I was often on my own. I learned quickly to entertain myself, a skill that Angela also has. Sometimes that very skill of independence can have it's drawbacks. There are some people on my life...ahem....who will say I'm a little too independent! LOL

I always wanted one more baby after I had Angela, but God had other plans. I ended up having a hysterectomy at the age of 29. The very thing I didn't want to happen...for Angela to be alone...had happened.

Dean and I met when Angela was 7. She has certainly ENJOYED having her "big guy Dean" all to herself, and being the sole rider in Mom's sidecar wasn't a bad part of the deal either. But still she was lonely. When Dean and I started talking to her about bringing home a sister (Ianna) she was pretty excited!

Now some will say we shouldn't have discussed it with her, but we were working on getting our homestudy done. Part of that process involves the social worker talking to the potential siblings about how they feel about the idea, so we really had no choice.

When things changed, and we started talking about a BROTHER instead, Angela did not seem quite as excited. We finally realized in her mind, a "brother" was someone bigger and older than her. She didn't want a bigger brother. She wanted someone smaller than her. She wanted someone who would play with her, and big brothers don't always like to do that. It took a bit for her to understand Axel WOULD be smaller than her, and he WOULD play with her.

And then Axel came home.

Axel DOES like playing with Angela, and she could not be more thrilled. What she doesn't understand is why he doesn't like to play "Cops" with her. Even though I have explained to her he just doesn't understand what "Cops" is, and that NO he's not watching "Dog the Bounty Hunter with her" she just doesn't understand. This is why I was not surprised to see her trying to tie his hands. LOL I laugh, only because Angela does not now HOW to tie, so her attempts were worthless, but Axel was intimidated just enough to not try getting away. He was very relieved to see me come around the corner. She was very unhappy that I ended their game.

We talked. We reminded her of the "no cops allowed" rule established months ago. We established a new rule. It is called, "No playing downstairs without a grown up." Axel is in full agreement of this rule, because he's really not thrilled about the basement anyway. Angela is a little bummed, but Axel has a cool room too so she's game for playing in there.

Especially "doctor."

If you stretch your mind a bit, you'll realize that "Cops" and "Doctor" are really the same game. One person is in control, and the other person is the "prisoner" or "patient" who must accept the orders. The difference is the tools used. Cops have handcuffs and guns, while doctors have syringes to give shots, blood pressure cuffs and stethoscopes. If they're really lucky, Doctors have ace bandages too.

Angela lucked out. Axel LOVES "Doctor". More specifically, Axel loves playing the role of doctor, and Angela's favorite role is that of the patient. She is very good at thinking up all kinds of ailments, and is also getting good at letting Dr. Axel know just what is ailing her. From a bad cough to a broken ankle, she gets her point across. Occasionally Dr. Axel is distracted by other patients who visit their walk-in clinic. Those big fluffy dogs make great patients too, you know, but they're tough competition for the patient laying on the bed. Eventually she gets mad and walks off.

There has been some regression here and there, mainly in the form of extra whining unlike any we've heard from her before, but it's really not been a big deal. What we ARE seeing a lot of is heavy competition. If Axel gets praised for doing something, you can bet Angela is going to kill herself trying to do it too. This includes following through with her responsibility chart. Axel is working on learning about his responsibility chart, and Angela is loving showing him how to do it, and that getting all these things done and checked off gets lots of praise.

And we are praising A LOT! We are praising a sickening amount, really, laying it on thick and heavy.

And it's working....for now.