Is this favoritism?

I don't think we, as parents, want to have a favorite kid. Nothing good comes of that. Ideally we resist the urge and treat our offspring equally and fairly. But lately I've discovered it can be a real challenge. Whether intentional or not, I want to hang out with #2 more than #1.

I'll try to explain myself, especially if these kiddos find this blog in the future. A great deal of my thinking on this revolves our day-to-day life today. #1 is 4 years old, and ages 3-4 can be a tough time for everyone. In addition to the great aspects (real leaps in learning, the ability to do ever more activities together etc), there's still so much emotion, so many struggles with transitions and the never-ending stream of questions, now with mostly unheard answers. Perhaps even more difficult is the growing desire to probe our will and increased challenges to what we'll allow, or not. His frequent attempts to ignore us when he doesn't like what he's hearing or the thus-far infrequent attempts to defy us directly never go well for him, but he's still trying. What he does't know is this is tough on us too. What's really daunting, since it's our first kid, is not knowing when it all peaks or goes from here. Maybe we're past it with emotion/transitions, but there's no end in sight on questions, and as for challenging our authority... (shrugs).

#2, then is 1 year old (almost 2) and this age is simple, pure and fun. He doesn't talk too much, at least coherently, but understands everything we say. He mostly happy and wants to help with chores. He gets mad at times too but his needs are met easily, usually simply with food or a nap. Best of all he's fun, and funny, to be around, partially because of (not in spite of) the fact he's still our baby tornado, constantly getting into everything he shouldn't and making me nervous whenever I can't hear him for a short period of time.

Another aspect is expectations. From #1 I've always expected too much too soon, from behavior to learning and everything else. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that on quite a few occasions I get overly frustrated when he doesn't understand or get something the first time he sees/hears it, and that's on me. By the time we encounter the same things with #2 I have way more patience and an ability to take the longer view of life. It's good that I'm improving over time but, also, it's unfortunate I've added certain unnecessary pressure on our firstborn. I think more than anything it's because I'm an oldest child myself and am apparently a bit high strung about it. I know in my head there's no need to rush through childhood development, and life in general. But it's hard to change how I react going through it all the first time.

When focusing on our two boys and what they're like at this point in time, yeah, that leads me to favor #2. I'm often totally worn out by #1 extremely quickly, like in an hour after he gets home from school. Meanwhile, I usually enjoy #2 all day long and exhibit far more patience with him at every turn. Is this right? No. Is it inevitable? Maybe. I do know this largely is a byproduct of their ages more than their personalities.

I'm worried it's not only that, however. In a lot of ways #1 is so much like me. He's hesitant and a worry-wart. He tends to get hyper focused on tasks and struggles to handle being interrupted or if there isn't time for him to finish what he's doing. He's incredibly particular about everything and systematic with how he processes life. That stuff all comes from me. I want to apologize to the rest of you, like my wife, because I can now see myself better through my son, and it turns out I drive myself crazy. (She also now deals with both of us.)

On the other hand, #2 and I have always worked well together. He's very different from me, at least what we can tell at this age. Most prominent are his fearlessness with how he plays and relentlessness with what he wants to explore. But there are more subtle tidbits at play too. As one example, even when he was oh so little, I could never successfully get #1 to go to sleep in his crib. I would rock him and get him to nod off then fail 100% of the time to make the transfer, requiring assistance from my wife. With #2 I've seemingly always had magical powers when it comes to sleep. As a little one I could easily get him down and continue to do quite well whenever he wakes up in the middle of the night, whether he's sick or whatever else. It's obvious he's more of a 'daddy's boy' than #1 and that's a contributing factor.

So this is multi-faceted. In some ways #2 has been easier on me his entire life to this point. During this time #1 has gone through a notoriously difficult period and the contrast is heightened. Then I just expect too much from him, probably brought on by my own issues. Luckily most of this should resolve as they both grow older, it's got to be age more than personality. I don't think, over the long term, there will be any real struggle to love and treat my sons equally. For shorter periods, though, it kinda feels like I'm doing something wrong and can't help it.

Okay, that's the best I can do in describing this stuff. Parenting, man, I never thought it'd be a breeze but still, it's hard. Now let's throw a third kid to the mix, right? Right?