Liam And Claire

When Liam was two years old, we decided to get him a little sister. Actually, we didn’t decide that but it happened anyway. I remember one afternoon Angie coming out of the bathroom with the little stick in her hand saying, “I’m pregnant.” (I didn’t know we kept those things in the house). She was crying and I was speechless. I had no idea she even suspected she was pregnant.

My first thought was “What?”
My second thought was “How?”
My third thought was “How do you think?”
My fourth thought was “Oh.”
“Are you serious?” I said.
“Yes. I knew it.” She said wiping tears from her cheeks.
“This is just what we don’t need right now.” I said. We had always wanted two, maybe three kids but when it was clear that Liam had special needs, all those plans got put on the back burner and all of our energy went into him. We felt we had so much on our plates that we couldn’t possibly give another child the required attention. This just felt like a huge blow and I could not get my mind around it… yet. It just seemed overwhelming to think about another kid in addition to Liam. He needed so much. I didn’t want to take away from that.

It didn’t take long to realize we better get used to the idea of another kid. I had all these anxieties about not being sure if I could love another person as much as I loved Liam, and Angie worried that this one could have special needs too. How would we handle that? Along with the anxieties there was some joy that slowly started creeping in. At two years old Liam was starting to show interest in other kids and was already a little more connected to us and the world since we started really working with him. Maybe a little brother or sister would be a good thing for him. But…wow! Could we handle two kids? Other people can do it. Why should it be hard for us? But the money and the time…it was all going to Liam right now. But another little one would be pretty cool.

Over the next eight or so months we tried to prepare Liam and ourselves for a new addition to our family. Even though Liam really couldn’t understand what was going on, we still talked to him every day about it, thinking that maybe something was sinking in somehow. We slowly warmed up to, and embraced the idea ourselves. We definitely had the space even though the house we were living in was still under renovation (a slow process that continues today). We were both working full time but we planned for Angie to take a leave of absence from her work once the baby was born. Along with his school, we had a pretty good home program going for Liam with a great therapist who spent most of the day with him, and we knew that would continue. It was just a matter of making the necessary adjustments.

During this pregnancy, we were also working on another investment house that we were fixing up. When I say we, I mean that I was working my regular job and working on the house in all my spare time. Angie was supervising the job, or “bossing me around” as I like to call it (just kidding honey), so we definitely had a lot going on as Angie continued to get larger and larger….and larger. She really seemed to get much larger than she did with Liam, partly because in the end she was two weeks late with this one, whereas she was right on time with Liam. Another factor was that Liam was born in February, a cold month, but this one was in August during one of the hottest summers in Portland history. Angie’s feet swelled up to the point where I was convinced that she could propel a car, Flintstone style, with no problem.

We chose to not find out the sex of our kids before they were born. It was just something we agreed on, thinking that we really wanted that last final surprise at the end. We really didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl and weighed the benefits of both genders. A boy would be a great buddy for Liam but a girl would give us the best of both worlds. Our biggest hope was that this would be a healthy, typically developing child. My biggest hope was that both my children would be able to mow the lawn someday, and maybe pull weeds...and wash the cars.

Well, August seventh, two weeks later than the due date, at 10:00 at night Angie went into labor. Why is it always so late at night? That happened with Liam too. I was just getting into bed both times. It really isn’t fair (just kidding honey). This one came really fast compared to Liam. By the time we got to the hospital Angie was having strong contractions, one after another. When we got in the hospital, she went right into the delivery room and out came little Claire (there are more details than that but we all get the picture). The first thing I thought was, “Damn, that was fast.” And then I thought, “Liam has a little sister”.

At first Liam wasn’t really tuned in to this new little person in his life. I can remember one evening when we had Claire on a blanket on the floor and Liam was in a really hyper and silly space and he ran right over the top of her. He had no idea or concept of what he had done. We tried to explain to him what he did and how he really could have hurt the baby but he was in his own silly world at the time and couldn’t hear us.

We began to have fears of having to protect Claire from Liam, but that didn’t last long. Claire soon became a force to be reckoned with. As she grew, she developed a very strong personality and Liam could not help but take notice of her. By age two Claire was bossing Liam (and us) around. The contrast between Claire and Liam was like night and day. Liam struggled to engage with the world and Claire was just out there. We really started to appreciate how Claire forced us out of the bubble we hadn’t previously realized we had made for ourselves. Our focus on Liam had been consuming to the point where we felt we needed to protect him from the world and now we were seeing it differently. We knew Claire had a strong drive to engage with the world and we realized that we all needed to do this together.

As Claire got older and more aware, the bond between her and Liam grew and strengthened. She was the one kid who was around Liam all the time and Liam really started to focus on her. When Claire started to pass Liam developmentally, she really became more of a big sister to Liam and the cool thing was that she really does not see Liam as any different from any other kid. I remember one time Angie mentioning that Liam couldn’t talk very well and Claire said, “Liam can talk” with a puzzled look on her face. She really had no concept that Liam had a different set of struggles. Claire is five now and Liam is eight and the big sister thing has really started to kick in. Claire really takes notice of how we interact with Liam to try to help him along and she follows suit. One night I was listening in at bed time (they sleep in the same room right now because they both want to be together) and Claire was reading a bedtime book to Liam. When I say reading, I mean she was reciting it from memory. But she would stop at certain words and say, “What’s that word Liam?…Good. Good job” In a nurturing teacher voice. When Liam wants to get silly he goes up to Claire and says “Wanna go to the playroom?” with a great big excited grin on his face. They find so many things to do together including annoying the hell out of each other and out of us. Liam has figured a way to push Claire’s buttons by letting out a very high-pitched squeal that can even make Chester go run and hide. He does this with such obnoxious brotherly glee and it drives Claire crazy. After breaking up the conflict and getting things settled down it is hard for us not to be happy about this typical behavior. After all Liam used to not even notice Claire, let alone deliberately annoy her.

Claire is a very social little person but she is always happy just to play with her brother, and Liam is happy to have such a great playmate that fully understands him and sees him for who he is instead of what he can’t do. Claire is such a catalyst for Liam to help him negotiate his increasingly social world. I think back on what I said when we found out Angie was pregnant with Claire “This is just what we don’t need right now”. They say that life doesn’t give you more than you can handle. I believe this and I also believe that just when you think you have more than you can handle, life gives you something to help you handle it. There is no doubt that Claire is what Liam needed but she is also what we needed. She brought us the perspective that we were missing. She is exactly what we needed.