M Gets a Life, E Is Sad

M is four years, seven months, and three days older than E. We didn't plan it that way, but it's worked out well. When E was born, M was old enough to have a life of her own and appreciate a baby sister of her own. There was a reasonable amount of covert sibling torture, but significantly less than I've seen between kids who are closer in age. Mainly there was lots of playing with the baby and ignoring the baby, who of course didn't care if she was ignored, given that she was a baby.

As E became human, they played together all the time. It helped that in No Longer Red State Capital City Suburb, M's best friend was an only child who was very tolerant of E, indeed, considered her an adjunct younger sister. Also, for the last two years we lived there, when M was 7 and 8 and E was 3 and 4, S and E, who were 5/6 and 8/9 respectively, lived two houses down, and the four girls were inseparable, playing together most afternoons and all weekend, in various arrangements of two and four (and occasionally three, when there was a fight, which was usually between M and their E).

Since we moved, though, and especially this year, M has been leaving E behind. They can still play together very happily, but E now has a mind of her own, which leads to much conflict over "the game," and while M still loves to play, she gets bored long before E does. In addition, M's social life is ramping up considerably. She has just become serious about her email and she and her gang of friends (there are about eight of them, give or take the day's conflicts, which are actually remarkably minimal) email every day, making plans for sleepovers, sledding and the like (never one to be left behind, E has also become serious about her email, but her correspondence is limited to grandparents and her cousin--Aunt M, let me know if you want her email address!!). Then there are the slumber parties, the dashing up to me after school and asking if she can go to X's house, the invitations for expeditions with friends and their families. Which is all very well and good and age-appropriate.

But poor E is not so happy. She misses M. She wants M to play with her. She gets lots of Mama time, which is all very well and good, but, let's face it, I don't play so much, and consolation prizes are never as good as the real thing. She has started having sleepovers with her best friend, and I occasionally manage a playdate, usually at the behest of a more organized mother (I think she's had two in the last month), but the bottom line is: she's six, not ten; her best friend lives twenty minutes away, not across the street; she has lots of friends in her new school, but none that she or I have clicked with to the point that making an effort is effortless. In other words, she's the tag-along second child with the neglected social life.

I'm not worried. E will find her friends, and eventually she'll get older and dash off to her friends' houses after school. But I think it's going to be a lot harder to be the big kid younger sister of an early adolescent, than it was to be the little kid younger sister of a big kid.