Siblings

There's almost nothing better (at least at this point) about being a parent that seeing your kids love each other. And the kids, for the most part, really do seem to like each other a lot. Matthew and Sam play together quite often and while they fight at times and drive me crazy, they also hardly ever are apart, nor do they show signs that they want to be apart. At the Y, Sam loves it when all the children are in the same room together (during busier times the older kids go to the playground or gym while the little ones stay in the child care room) and he gets to stay with Matthew. And nearly every time I pick the kids up, Sam and Matthew are playing together. Today when I picked them up, I could hear them laughing together and found them playing hide and seek together with one of the child care workers. They were having a great time.

They come up with all sorts of diversions to play together at home too. Usually the play beside each other (like both play with their own cars), but sometimes they engage in make-believe activities together. Like when they play "nap"together. Last night the boys decided to play "Rocket ship" while I was putting Abby to bed as I had admonished them to find something to do so I could put Abby to bed (Jason got home late). So they got their "friends", some books and blankets and got their rocket ship ready for take off. When I came out of Abby's room and saw what they were up to, I was reminded of how my sister and I had set up all of our "friends" in our stairway when we were little and played "airplane".

And Sam and Abby quite enjoy each other too. Abby does her "happy to see you dance" when she sees Sam in the morning or after naps and she bobs her head around, smiles and squeals. Sam is equally delighted with Abby and calls her "Cheeky girl" and loves to pinch her cheeks. Today when Sam was lying on the floor reading, Abby crawled over to him, crawled up his legs and then belly-flopped onto his back before rolling onto the floor beside him. There was no crying, just Abby squealing and Sam being very tolerant of his little sister. Matthew was still napping when this happened, and at one point Sam and I went over to the stairway to see if we could hear him. Sometimes he reads to himself in his room before wanting to get up, so we just wanted to check. We didn't hear anything, but as we descended the stairs, Sam stopped at the landing and said, "Mommy, watch me whistle for Abby." Abby was playing beside the ottoman. Sam then proceeded to make a high-pitched screeching noise to which Abby responded with her own high-pitched squeal. So I guess that's how they communicate.

Things are a little more unpredictable between Matthew and Abby. I know I've mentioned this before, but Matthew will get excited to see Abby and try to pinch her cheeks as Sam does, but he's a little more rough and ends up making Abby cry sometimes. He just needs to work on his soft side a bit. And Abby does get excited when she sees Matthew, like she does for Sam, but she's a little less tolerant of him at times. And he's less tolerant of her getting into his stuff. I've often thought that Matthew and Abby are pretty similar in their temperament, so I don't know if that's affecting their relationship or if it's simply a matter of age. Only time will tell.

And here are some other "catch up" pictures from the past few days.

 Sam got stung on his foot by a bee on Tuesday, so he was resting with an ice pack and some books in the aftermath. Abby was keeping him company.

And just another cute baby picture.