My day.

Today was by no means a perfect day, Tom was whiney and the boys disobeyed me many times, but there were so many sweet moments I had to type them out before I forgot them.

First off let's start with baby girl's first big belly laugh, at no other than her big brother Tommy.  He wasn't even trying to make her laugh, he just made noises, b/c he thinks he can talk, and she laughed and kicked her feet like it was the funniest thing in the world.  Kyle and I were laughing so hard that Tommy got mad and was grunting and then Ella laughed harder, and then we laughed harder,and then Tommy got madder.  It was a vicious cycle that ended with Tom crawling out of and escaping his high chair for the first time ever.

A little later the boys were hanging out in the family room.  And everything Tommy did, Silas did.  He wants to be just like his big brother.  Silas will sit, lay, stand right next to Tommy and follow his lead.  They played a lot together and kept making each other laugh.  It blesses my heart to know that while the rest of the world will quickly notice that Tommy has Down Syndrome, it's going to take a long time for Silas to ever notice there is anything different about him, because Tommy will just be his big brother who he has known and love all his life!

Next would be when Tom was playing on the iPad and I walked over to turn down the volume.  I sat Ella next to him on his right side and she moved her hands around (she has started trying to reach for things and is very active with her arms and hands) and I asked Tom, "do you think Ella wants to hold your hand?" So he reached over and held her hand for a couple of minutes, while continuing to pay with the iPad using his left hand, something he never does.  Too sweet!

When the boys got up from their nap I had their kid music station playing on pandora so we could dance and Ella was laying on her activity blanket.  Tommy kept going up to her and looking at her. And I said, "I think she wants to hold your hand again." So he held her hand and moved it around like he was dancing with her until the song was over.  Then he let of and walked off.

The boys were playing in the kitchen after dinner.  They were dancing and Silas likes to be the initiator of games so he tries to hand Tom toys all the time and says "This" or he will hand Tom his sippy cup and say "This" b/c Silas wants to drink his drink, so he needs Tommy to do it too.  Clearly that's very important.  Sometimes Tommy wants the toy or cup he's offering and other times he doesn't.  Well Silas gets very upset when Tommy doesn't want to do what he wants to do.  And
Tommy ends up running away.  So I try to defuse the situation by saying, oh go get him Silas he's running for you, you got to catch him.  Then they just chase each other around the kitchen and family room cracking up and no one ever really gets caught.  But it's so sweet to see their friendship grow and that they love having the other one around.

Lastly, or at least the last thing I can remember from the day, was the boys talking to each other.  Silas and Tommy had eye contact and Silas would say a word and Tommy would repeat it, or try to if it was a word he couldn't say.  So pretty much we now have our own live in speech therapist for Tom.  Hopefully he doesn't figure out he isn't getting paid.  They said the words mama, Ella (which are the two Tom can say good) then dog, down, Mickey, and drink. We do hope that Silas' growing vocabulary will be a good encouragement for Tommy to start making new sounds and putting those sounds together to make words.

Oh and as the boys went to bed Silas saw Tommy's blanket had been moved off of his bed and picked it up and carried it to his bed for his brother.  I mean seriously how much sweeter can you get!  Now I better buckle up for tomorrow b/c they may have expended all their sweetness for the week in one day!