When I was a little girl, I was endlessly annoyed by one of my brothers. Now I think he’s pretty much awesome…but back then? I usually didn’t want much to do with him. There were the occasional times where he would play barbies with me or let me boss him around, choreographing dance moves or making up “house” plots. But mostly he just knew how to push all my buttons.
I used to think my mom was so unfair because I always thought she sided with him. “He just wants to play with you,” she’d say. I remember wailing, “Mom, you just don’t understand what it’s like to have him as a brother!”
I wish I could take it all back. I wish I could go back and play together more. I wish I would have realized that our time to live with our siblings is just so short. Now we love each other and see each other relatively often…but it’s not the same.
Now that I am a parent of two boys, I find myself reminiscing a lot about the old days with my siblings. I even found myself telling my elder son, “Simon just wants to play with you,” when he complained that Simon was messing up his block tower. Oh how the tables have turned.
For the past month or two since Simon has really started to be able to play with Elias, I’ve always sided with Simon. I’ve been trying to get Elias to play with Simon, or to help Simon, or to be patient with Simon. But recently, I’ve realized that Elias is going through some of the same frustrations I went through as a young girl. I need to “side” with him sometimes too.
Yesterday evening, we were playing together, and I captured in a series of pictures Simon’s typical behavior. He loves Elias and wants to do whatever Elias is doing. But it is quite comical how much poor Elias has to put up with. I took this series of pictures, and then removed Simon from the area to give Elias some peace.
So here you go…The Tale Of The Two Brothers:
Elias is playing happily with a pretend cell phone. Simon sees, and excitedly crawls up to him. Simon sits pretty much on Elias, and tries to take said phone.
Simon eventually pries the phone from Elias’ fingers. Elias reaches for the plastic container which usually holds his dinosaur magnets, and entertains himself with that instead. Simon sees this, tosses the phone, and goes after the plastic container.
They wrestle around for awhile, playing tug of war with the container. Elias gets up and moves across the room with it. Simon follows and more tug of war ensues.
Simon wins. Elias sees the previously discarded play phone, and gets up to go get it. He plays with it for about 1 or 2 seconds before Simon sees and has zeroed in on his new target.
The plastic container is forgotten. A new game of tug of war ensues over the phone.
Mommy finally sets aside the camera and intervenes.