When Frank was born, Caroline was excited at first. Then she realized he really didn’t do much besides eat, sleep and cry — and take up lots of my time — and by the time he was a month old, she asked when, not if, he was going back. That was when she was 2 1/2, and overall, I thought she reacted pretty well to the introduction of a new sibling into the house. She always grudgingly admitted to kind of liking him, and loving your brother or sister was never up for question — as we told her more than once, you love him because he’s your brother. And as Frank got older, it went the other way, too: You love her because she’s your sister. It’s not something you have a choice about. Now that Teresa is here, eating and sleeping and crying like any other baby, Caroline is excited again, but it’s different this time. This time, she understands that Teresa doesn’t take up my time because she’s selfish (or at least not inappropriately so). She takes up my time because she’s a baby who needs to be taken care of, and that’s what babies do. She doesn’t cry to annoy us; she cries because she needs something, even if it’s only to find a way to go to sleep, and she doesn’t have any other way of expressing that need. Now a few weeks old, she is adding to her communications repertoire. There are long, lingering looks and we’ve even seen a smile or two, and that makes interacting with her that much more rewarding. But even before that, Caroline took the lead in helping to care for her, holding and rocking and singing to her, even when she was fussy or crying. More than once, I’ve heard her cry on waking from a nap, and before I could get there to pick her up, Caroline had her in the rocker. Frank also loves to hold his baby sister, although he’s more willing to pass her back to mom or dad when she cries. But he bounces her and talks to her and strokes her fuzzy little head. Most evenings, pre-baptism, he blessed her by making the Sign of the Cross on her with holy water, just to make sure God was aware that she was here and we wanted his blessings upon her. Of course, Frank, gone from being a youngest to a middle child, does think it’s a bit unfair that he’s the only one of the three that doesn’t have a sibling of the same gender, while Caroline got the sister she’s been asking for since Frank was born. On the other hand, he is looking at the bright side; he found a statistic somewhere that said middle children are the least likely to go to jail. I have no idea where that came from or whether it is true, but if it gives him some comfort, so be it. In the meantime, as long as all three of them have one another, I think they’ll all do fine. Brothers and sisters — older, younger, whatever — can be annoying, but they also can be strong sources of support. Who said whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?