making progress

Look at me! Posting twice in one week…making progress indeed.

My boys are also making more progress in the brotherhood department.  Since there is always going to be some level of sibling rivalry, I have realized I just need to get more used to the toy snatching, tackling, chasing, and screaming we’ve been experiencing.  And, I need to focus on the fact that all this brotherhood behavior is actually refreshing – it means Drew and Leo are bonding.  Or...at least that’s what I am going with.

More and more, Leo just wants to do whatever Drew is doing.  The good.  And the bad.  Most of the time it’s cute…except when it annoys Drew, then watch out!  But I am so proud that the boys are beginning to share and play together a bit more.

Drew has a few boxes of “guys”.  He’s got baseball guys, hockey guys, soccer guys, and football guys.  (The only “guys” that they make that we don’t have are soccer girls.)  All these guys, depending on the sport, comes a felt field or vinyl rink, a scoreboard, goalposts or goals, and umpires or referees.  I have to admit, these guys are pretty cool – including the cool storage/carrying case they all come in - and highly recommend them.

Without a doubt, at least one set of these guys are played with for an extended period of time on a daily basis.  For me, this play often involves helping to decide which teams are playing each other (specific high school, college, or professional teams), having to watch “good play” after “good play”, hearing the ever-changing score over-and-over-and-over (boy are Drew’s math skills getting good!), and constantly pulling Leo off the field and telling him ‘no!’ – the guys are Drew’s.  It is exhausting. 

 I do not blame Leo for his interest in these players; they are quite tempting to snatch off the field to play with – especially when seeing his big brother playing with these guys non-stop, they must be the best toys ever, right?!  But play with these guys by a one-year old is not in the four-year old’s playbook.  I have been waiting and waiting for the day that Drew will let Leo play with him.  With all the time spent with these guys, Leo has had LOTS opportunity to observe the “proper way” to play with these sporty little dudes.  Recently, he figured out how to stand them up on the field and even tried to help Drew with his game.  Progress towards playing together, right? Nope.  Unfortunately, Drew did not view this accomplishment with the same enthusiasm I did.

Well, Leo must have had enough of hearing me say no, enough of Drew pushing or kicking him off the field, and enough of Drew yelling at him that “the guy doesn’t go THERE” - because finally his actions said “ENOUGH! I don’t need your guys Drew, I’ll play with my own guys and on my own field!”  After being ejected from the “real guys playing field” one day Leo proceeded to go to the kitchen, empty a drawer, take out the drawer liner, spread it on the floor and go get his own set of guys.  And then he played his own game.  No joke.  It was awesome.

And, guess who thought this was pretty cool too and wanted to play with these Lego guys turned sports guys in the kitchen.  Yep, Drew.  Thankfully, Leo was a good sport and obliged.

The next time Drew was playing with his football guys, he happily gave Leo the Ref to play with…without being asked to share.  It was a proud Mama moment.

I am confident we’ll continue to make progress in the ‘happy brothers’ department.  There’s definitely more laughing and hugging and helping and sharing going on by both boys (between the tantrums and time-outs) these days…all positive things that make me smile more and more each day and reassure me that we’ve got lots very fun days in our future with two boys in the house.

Until next time…hope you had a HAPPY KOREAN-AMERICAN DAY!