A Snippet of Brotherly Love

It was a little thing, but it warmed my heart.


My not-quite-one-and-a-halfer had been playing with his twin brothers in the back yard, when they both decided (mental telepathy?) to retreat to the kitchen where I was making dinner to see what they could get into. The toddler left in the yard showed no concern, until... he tried to get the teeter-totter to work, by himself.

He screeched with frustration and disappointment (he had seen how much fun the other two had, playing on it just a few minutes earlier). But, the plain truth is that such an apparatus requires a partner. I felt my heart go heavy, feeling his solitude. So I explained to the twins, "He'd really like to play on the teeter-totter. Would one of you like to play with him?"

The first to respond gave the answer I expected: "no!" Then the other, very gently, said, "I'll do that," and he joined his younger brother at the back of the yard.

Attention spans of toddlers and pre-schoolers measure in nano-seconds, so the interaction didn't last long. But for the brief minutes they played together, I smiled at their squeaks of laughter, wide grins and, especially, the look of enthralled joy worn by my youngest boy.

Such a nice contrast to the more typical whacking and smacking that goes on among our boys. Gives me hope... :)