Caught Off-Balance

One of the things Kathy and I are always struggling with is trying to balance our attentions between the two girls. After all, parents are supposed to love their kids exactly equally and therefore Kathy and I should each be spending exactly 50.00% of our attention on Leah and exactly 50.00% of our attention on Riley. If we don’t, well that’s just bad parenting.

By this scale, Kathy and I are pretty crappy parents. I would estimate that Kathy spends, say, 72% of her attention on Leah and I spend about 72% of my attention on Riley. I’m not quite sure how or when this started, but this is where we find ourselves now.

There are a bunch of reasons for the imbalance. The first and most important is that, basically, I’m just better at entertaining Riley, and Kathy’s just better at entertaining Leah. Riley’s a pretty fun-loving adventurous girl who likes to be tossed into the air, swung around wildly by her arms, held upside down – and it just so happens that these things happen to be daddy’s bread and butter. Mommy - not so much. Unfortunately for me, Leah’s a big ol’ scaredy cat right now. She kinda likes observing Riley being tossed into the air, but if daddy tries to toss Leah into the air, she starts making this weird, nervous sound that wavers between a laugh and a cry for a few seconds and then, if daddy doesn’t stop, dissolves into full-blown cry.

What Leah does like is the cuddle, and while daddy is fully willing to cuddle with her, his cuddling credentials are no match for mommy, who is an Olympic-caliber cuddler, at least in Leah’s eyes. Leah wants to cuddle with mommy when she wakes up, before she goes to sleep, whenever she hurts herself, whenever Riley takes away her toy, whenever she’s tired, whenever she’s sick, whenever she’s bored – you get the picture. And in these situations, daddy’s pretty darn useless to her --- meaning that daddy’s pretty darn useless to her most of the time.

It’s kind of a self-perpetuating cycle. Leah demands most of Kathy’s attention, so Kathy spends less time with Riley, which means that Riley prefers to spend time with me, which means I pay less attention to Leah, which reinforces Leah’s mommy preference. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So, how to get back into balance? Maybe daddy should wear extra-soft and squishy clothes to enhance his cuddle appeal?

Or maybe balance is overrated. Every kid’s got a favorite parent, right? Maybe we’re just lucky that both kids don’t have the same favorite parent, because, boy, it can be pretty hard to toss both kids in the air at the same time. I mean, I can juggle tennis balls and bean bags and all, but I haven’t tried juggling 17 month-old girls before. And I’m pretty sure Kathy wouldn’t be too keen on me trying it.