Fabulous Day

I’m so excited! Braeden had plans to visit a new friend at school today, which always seems like a good thing. Then last night we got a call from one of the families we are carpooling with. The mom had to go somewhere today and her babysitter needed to leave early. She asked if we could cover the time in between. Her boys are both six months older than my two.. I said yes because she has been helping me out by making sure Braeden’s ride gets him in the afternoon, she’s been taking him to sailing, and because she also agreed to have her four-year-old come over and do developmental therapy at home with Thane as his peer role model.

The big problem that we were seeing is that the boys hadn’t connected yet. After a month of a riding next to each other in the car, they still weren’t talking to each other. The last time I watched the boys, the four-year-old asked as they left why Thane wouldn’t play with him.

It only took about 15 minutes to break the ice today. The older boy sat down in our swing chair in the living room. His brother climbed in on top of him, then invited Thane. Thane accepted and got in too. Then they sat together in a chair chatting while the older boy played computer games.

We got into a discussion of Halloween and we pulled out some of Braeden’s old dress up clothes. Braeden loved to be “Hero Boy” and stuff like that. The four-year-old settled on Superman and asked Thane to put on a Spiderman outfit . . . and he did! Who would have thought Thane would agree to that! The two super heroes bounded on the trampoline outside, ran around on the old play sets, raced around the yard, etc.

“Thane, would you like to do something else now?” the new friend asked.

“Yes!” Thane answered, and off they went on another adventure. The fact that Thaney is answering questions is rather recent and it is so nice to see. This whole thing was amazing and so worthwhile. I am so happy with how it worked. The boys’ mom came after only about an hour, but then stayed another hour or more because the little ones were just so cute together.

Another big thing is the size difference – Thane has caught up so much. He was such a teeny little thing and looked so small in comparison to this boy who is almost exactly 6 months older. But Thane has grown so much in the past year that there is much more typical two inches or so in height. It makes the catch up seem all the more dramatic.

Braeden had a blast with his friend too, so all around a good day.