Inner turmoil

The cracks in Christian's emotional state are finally appearing, 5 months after his sister was born.

My helper Ida told my mum a few days ago that Christian caught Calista looking innocently at him while he was playing and he said "Cannot look at my toys! I'll poke your eyes!"

My dad told me that when Christian came back from school yesterday and washed his hands, he ignored my dad's request for Christian to dry his hands on the hand towel, and instead ran to his sister who was reclining in a rocker and flung the water droplets at her face, causing her to blink in surprise.

P fretted that Christian is setting himself up for a shelling by P soon, at the rate things are going. I was of the opinion that scolding Christian will only make things worse, but P thinks we need to check the jealous impulses that Christian will inevitably be unable to curb on his own. Sigh.

The strange thing is, Christian doesn't act like that in front of me. I see him taking the initiative to care for his sister, by removing hard rattles and chiding her gently "you cannot bite this, it's hard!"

When I carry her and sort of thrust her at him, he'll lean and hug her, and attempt to carry her while seated. P thinks it's all for show though.. sigh.

My mum tried to test Christian the other day, by asking him -

"Do you love mama?" (Yes)
"Do you love Daddy?" (Yes)
"Do you love popo?" (Yes)
"Do you love gonggong?" (Yes)
"Do you love meimei?" (Silence)

Should I take comfort in the fact that he's diplomatic enough to not say it outright?

He's also been rather emotionally unstable these days. My mum asked me to stop scolding him for not eating, and I gave up cos scolding doesn't seem to help matters. So we let him be, last night..and he ate plain rice with soup. Spat the fish I gave him out, but had no problems chewing rice balls (it was the winter solstice yesterday). Sigh. He's lost weight, but perhaps I need to give him space and start racking my brains on areas where I can cede control to him, other than in choice of clothes.

Argh. Children.

[31st Dec update: The situation shows signs of improvement. The brother still brushes his adoring sister off, but relents when I put in a good word for her. Case in point - two mornings ago, I placed her on the bed in between Christian and I, too tired from the repeated night feeds to move. She kept pawing her brother, who brushed her hand off repeatedly. I felt bad for the little girl, and tried to soften the brother by saying "oh look..she really likes you.. she's trying to sayang her korkor"... when i next pried an eye open, i saw that he was holding her hand as her arm thrashed about.. :)
He's also taken the initiative to give her kisses on the thigh without prompting, or hugs when i mention that his meimei will be scared of the loud vacuum cleaner / blender, just like he used to be.
So, there's hope yet!]