Sweet, sweet boys

David and Ryan are 20 months apart. That means that for 4 months every year (between July 16th & November 17th), their ages are only 1 year apart - like right now, when they're 4 & 5. For anyone who has the stamina for 2 that close together, most of the time I highly recommend it! They are interested in the same things most of the time, and really like playing together! They do fight quite often, though, and intentionally bother each other way more often than I would like. But just when I start thinking that maybe they don't like each other after all, they show me how much they really, really love each other.

I just dropped David off at Kindergarten half an hour ago, then came home & put Katy down for a nap. I had heated the oven to make my lunch (frozen chicken fingers - yum!), and thought it would be fun to make some cookies while the oven was hot. We still have some cookie dough from last time it was a coupon deal at Costco, so I pulled that out to show Ryan. I thought it'd be a nice, fun thing for just the two of us. I told him that I wanted 3, and would he like 1, 2, or 3? He, of course, said 3. Then he asked if we were going to make some for David. I hadn't planned on it, but Ryan said that he wanted to, and that David would like 3 as well! Sweet little Ryan!

This was only the most recent of many similar experiences. A week or so ago I was going through David's backpack after school, and found half of a brownie wrapped in a napkin. I said "Oh, you had a brownie today?" assuming he just hadn't finished in time, and would eat it at home. Nope! He broke his brownie in half to bring half of it home to Ryan! One of them frequently comes upstairs to get snacks for both of them while they're playing or something, and last spring when David played baseball he always asked for another treat for his brother. But this time his brother wasn't even around! And he didn't just get a second one - he denied himself half of his own brownie for a brother that wasn't even there to know he was missing out! So sweet!

Oh, and a totally different show of sweetness from David occurred a few days ago. First of all, last week sometime I decided we should go to the park, then went to go get my shoes. Katy was all ready to go, so she went, all by herself! Then a couple days later I was downstairs organizing the playroom. The kids kept trying to play with the toys I was trying to go through, so I sent them all outside to the backyard. A little while later Dan called from upstairs to find out if Katy had come back down to me (she had). I kept on cleaning, he kept on doing whatever he was doing. Then about 10-15 minutes later we found out that David was out looking for Katy! He knew she left the backyard & was worried about her, and started searching. He even walked down to the playground to see if she was there! I just about cried when I found out! My sweet little 5 year old loves his baby sister so much that he stopped playing to find her, all on his own!

My kids drive me crazy on a regular basis, and I'm certainly not trying to say my kids are always sweet little angels. They most definitely are NOT! But every now and then they show a little glimpse of how caring & loving they can be, and it just melts my heart. I sure love them!