Now that it's been over a month since we said goodbye to the 4 year old, we've turned our full attention to the older two kids. 

Brother and sister, they are bright, chatty, and charming kids full of love and light like kids should be.When they joined our home, the little one was the little queen of the house.  She required so much attention and would take it from anyone that walked in the door like little girls sometimes can do.Now that she's gone, I am seeing some interesting changes to the dynamics of the house.  For one, now that Rob and I have more time to focus on the brother and sister.

Observation 1: Now that school is in full swing, we've had to take the kids away from the TV and endless video games that they've been used to.  Talk about withdrawal symptoms!  They come whining into the room saying they dont know what to do and they're bored.  Libraries are our friends kids! We go and take books out and they seem to be coming around in that respect.

Observation 2: While they're such obedient and respetful kids, especially in school and compared to other kids, they're not such great students. Their study habits give us pause and even more challenging is that when they're wrong with their work they dont take correction well.  They pout and say they know they're right and of course at the end of a long day it's really the last thing a parent wants to have to deal with but deal with it we must!

Observation 3: Now that it's just the two of them they have turned their full attention on each other which means endless chatter and not being able to focus on _anything else_ whether it's the food in front of them, their homework, or getting dressed for school!To deal with this we've taken to separating them for homework time, and getting them to eat separately if/when they decide that they want to re-enact the View at the dinner table.  I think this is a good approach because there are benefits to having some time along and quiet time without someone else on top of you all the time.

I guess this is a long post to reiterate that each and every addition to a household is going to affect all members in different ways.  Makes sense doesn't it?