Learning to be a brother.

Every night Caleb and I read books before bedtime. Last night Joshua sat with us while we went through the books. Caleb did the cutest thing. He asked to hold Josh, which I got him into position to do. And then he wanted to read the books. So I held the books; these particular books are the "look and find" type where you find objects hidden in the picture. Caleb held Joshua's little hand and made Josh point to the objects on the page, then he shouted "jockey did it!" and patted Joshua's tummy/shoulder (just like I do to congratulate him when he finds the objects.). It was just an adorable moment.

Then this morning he wanted to hold Joshua, which I let him do. My little chatter bug started talking. "jockey happy" etc. And Caleb started talking about Daddy, who was in the shower and would open the door any minute. Caleb while holding Joshua then patted Josh's tummy and said "me daddy". So I had to say that no, Caleb is Joshua's brother. And he got really excited about that. And then the chatter began about "me, brother"!

Lastly, Caleb has long been into putting things into his pockets. It started with balls and rocks then moved to Buzz and then money. Then he wanted to put money into our pockets when he found it, which I thought was novel and only wished that that phase would last during the teenage years. But he now REALLY wants to play with money. He found some last night. So I decided that it was time for him to have a place to put the money. Since I didn't have a jar etc, I cut a slit into the plastic lid of a Planter's Peanut can and ta-da Caleb has a money jar. The tin bottom makes a particularly exciting (and noisy) sound for Caleb to hear when he drops money in. He loves it, "money in" and "money out". He has found more through out the house, which I don't know where it comes from but at least it's not where Josh will find it now. I gave him a few coins out of Daddy's coin jar and told him the "mommy is sharing some of Daddy's money with him", but then I had to explain that Daddy goes to work so that we have money, and that we save money up so that we can buy toys and slurpees. (Hey, you got to speak to a kid's interests.) Of course, at 10:30 at night, I really had to wonder what kind of situation I had stepped in when I had to convince him that he can't sleep with the money and that Big Buzz would watch the money for him while he slept. To which, when he finally understood, that he said "money sleep". Ok, yeah, sure Caleb, now YOU sleep!