Big Brother

Josh has amazed me lately with his ability to be so sweet and gentle with his little brother.  I was worried, before Ben was born, that Josh would regress a bit, or be jealous of his brother.  The opposite has happened.  Josh's vocabulary has probably quadrupled since Ben was born and he's shown a level of empathy that I've never seen before.

When Ben is fussing I can usually call Josh over, set Ben in front of him and Josh will sing to him, kiss him and probably 75% of the time Ben calms down instantly.  I love looking over and seeing Ben smile up at Josh with a look of total adoration.  I think these boys are going to be best buds.Why is it that Josh is fascinated by baby toys?  Ben can't have a single toy to play with because Josh will instantly take it away from him and play with it himself.  Josh has played with this jungle gym more than he ever did when he was a baby.

One evening, we went out shopping as a family.  David pushed the kids cart, and I pushed a regular one.  (Yet another reason why I don't do shopping with both kids: no room for the things I actually want to purchase.)  Ben was fussy, so David prepped a bottle and enlisted Josh to help him.  We had to be quick taking the picture because Josh would stick the bottle in his mouth for only a second before he'd pull it out to give it a good shake.  Ben, due to his adoration, tolerates this eating disruption fairly well.

Please forgive the poor quality of this phone picture, but I was lucky to catch this cute moment of brotherly affection.  Or brotherly affection and brotherly tolerance as the case may be.

It isn't all blissful peace between the boys.  Josh still tends to have a meltdown when Ben starts crying and Josh's screaming makes Ben cry even harder, which is a vicious cycle I hope to be able to get past soon.  All things considered though, we're still pretty lucky to be the parents of these two boys.