Oh, how I love this season with little boys. The “learning to be brothers” season. The “my favorite playmate season.” The “let’s be shadows” season.
Jude is 15 months old now, and fully mobile and, while not a man of many words, a very precocious and able-bodied playmate for Simon, 3.
It seems I can’t find one without the other these days: tossing rocks into little metal pails, sitting astride Buttercup, Simon’s concrete block pretend horse, sharing a fistful of raisins and a Camelback of water.
Already, Simon has taught Jude how to strap on a bike helmet, and Jude has taught Simon to laugh rather than wail when the grasshopper escapes your bucket. It’s a fair exchange, in the currency of brotherhood.
Not too many years from now, these two will be like Phin and John Mark, locked in countless epic battles of Blink! and racing to see who can be the first to get to their shoes when Momma says its time to head out. Not long after that, they will be like Mathaus and Jack, sprawled across my couch parsing bits of war history, or throwing a frisbee and trying to see which one will eat the most dirt.
For now they are here, small blond heads, sweet laughter, sharing my lap and filling my arms and my heart. Not every day will be seamless. Sin and selfishness will complicate their relationship, and my heart will break more than once to see them hurt one another. But oh, brothers. All of them. I look forward with a glad heart knowing that they will blossom… together.