An Unexpected Journey: Sibling Love

Several people have shared this photo montage with me and I've also seen it posted many times on various media outlets like Facebook and Pinterest. Each time I see this, what jumps out at me above all is the incredibly apparent bond between this brother and sister duo. I can't help but immediately think of Lukey's relationship with Jackson, Olivia, and Isabel. At only 2 1/2 years old, I can already see the special connection that he has with them. Anyone who is around our kids recognizes instantly how much Luke admires his siblings, especially Jackson. Of course there's an obvious connection between Luke and Olivia, as twins go, but there's just so much more to it than that. As I've written before, it's as if Jackson and Olivia are already so protective of their sweet brother. There isn't a day that goes by where Jackson doesn't stop randomly in the middle of whatever busy activity he's intensely focused on to give Luke big brother bear hugs. He certainly doesn't do that with Olivia!

Playing in Daddy's new office

Over the last few months or so, Jackson has started to ask questions about Luke and why he isn't walking or talking like Olivia. Jackson and his cousin, Christina, love to battle over who is older than the other, so this is a very important topic of conversation to him these days. He loves to ask us if Olivia is older than Luke. When we tell him that Luke is actually 1 minute older than Olivia, the questions begin...questions that break my heart, but that I knew would come sooner or later. When we tell him that Lukey will do these things, but that it will just take him a little longer, he seems content with this answer for now. We explain to him that this is why Luke has so many different therapists coming over each day to help him work on these skills. Though Olivia is incredibly verbal these days, she obviously doesn't quite get the concept of Luke's delays as much as Jackson does; however, she cheers and claps as wildly as the rest of us when Luke works really hard to accomplish a goal. His latest maneuver, which he's done several times now since this past weekend, is to pull himself up to standing (on his own!) in his crib. The first time it happened, Jackson was in their nursery with Pete and ran downstairs as quickly as he could to get me, while Olivia started jumping up and down in her crib, shouting "YAY, Lukey!"

And he pulled himself up again!

There's nothing I love more than seeing the three of them playing and having a blast together. I can't wait until Isabel is right in there with them! Now that Luke's sleep issues have been somewhat resolved, he and Olivia are back in the same nursery. Watching them play together through their cribs is daily entertainment for us. I took this video one night at 9:30pm, after we had put them down for bed at 7pm. They did this for over 2 hours!

And another cute video of Luke and Olivia playing together...

Though he can't express it verbally, it's more than apparent that Luke idolizes his big brother Jackson. He loves to play with anything Jackson has, like his action figures and costumes, but he especially loves wrestling Jackson!