Best Buddies

There have been times over the past few months when I have wondered if I did the right thing keeping Caleb out of preschool this year, especially while I was sick.  But then I see what great buddies the boys are right now, and I know it was a good call.  Because we spent so much time housebound this fall, the boys have been on a bit of a social island.  But being on that island has forged their relationship into what it is.  If Caleb had had a lot of older friends to play with, he definitely would not have spent nearly as much time with his brother, nor had nearly as much patience with the inevitable challenges of a two-year age difference.

As it is, they are the best of playmates and fiercely loyal to each other. If I come across a "forbidden" item in the house that has obviously been tampered with, I call the boys in the room and ask, "Who did this?"  They look at each other nervously and then beg grace for each other: "Ethan did it but I told him to...please give him grace!"  "Caleb did it but it was just a little tiny bad choice...please give him grace!"

We were at the park the other day, and some older boys called Ethan a baby.  Caleb stood up for him (a little too vehemently), shouting, "He is NOT a baby!  Babies can't walk or talk and he is walking and talking so he is NOT a baby!"  Ethan, feeling something was still missing, followed Caleb's speech up with his two cents, "Yeah!  And dat's my big brudder!"  Caleb and Ethan make silly faces and noises to each other all day and laugh hysterically at themselves.  They tickle each other, wrestle, play chase, ride their bikes in circles, and on and on the play goes.  Every time I watch them enjoying something together, I'm just so grateful that they have each other.

Of course, they do get frustrated with each other at times as well.  Usually it happens like this: Caleb wants the play to go a certain way and Ethan doesn't understand what Caleb wants (if he understood, he would do it), so Ethan just decides to be deliberately annoying since he can't figure out how to please Caleb.  If I don't stop things here and intervene, Caleb gets really mad and things get physical.  If I come in after one of them has hit, pinched or pushed the other, I ask the boys what happened.  If I can determine who was more in the wrong, I send the guilty party to his room.  This causes the "victim" to immediately erupt in tears and start begging for his brother to be given grace and be allowed to stay.  If I relent, they happily resume their play.  If I do not, the "incarcerated" brother is usually the immediate recipient of some prized booty (often the very toy they were fighting over), which is snuck up from the play room by his sympathetic brother.

They are best friends right now, and I don't think there is anything Caleb could have learned in preschool four days a week this year that would have been more valuable than this.