I do my best. Some days I want to go for retroactive birth control. Other days I tell myself bickering is normal. I remind myself the real pliant, quiet ones become axe murderers. Kids are jealous of each other.
Kids are afraid someone else is getting more.
When my father told me my step-mother was pregnant, jealousy curled through me fierce as horseradish. I was twenty and none too proud that the green-eyed monster had taken up space in my heart. My half-brother and sister are delightful people. They are boon companions to our kids. But I knew our father when he was a young man.