Big Brother Little brother

I always knew I wanted more than one child, but I had no idea how amazing it would be to watch my children grow and interact with one another.  Now that Copeland is walking and interacting more directly with Mac, the two have fallen into their stereotypical roles as the older and younger brother. 

Mac is always bossing Copeland around and Copeland does a good job of ignoring him.  They fight over toys and Mac is constantly tattle telling that Copey is messing up his animals organization.  Mac will spend hours lining animals up in various groupings, and if I move even one animal over 2 inches he can tell.  You can imagine what a 16mo old little brother can quickly do to the animal organization with one swipe of the hand.  I’m sure of the course of this blog I will have many opportunities to share big brother little brother stories, so I won’t try to recap them all today!  

I do want to share a few photos though.  The first is Mac reading to Copey this past Saturday morning.  Coe was walking around with a book and kept hitting my leg with it in an attempt to get me to read.  I was right in the middle of doing something so I asked Mac to read to him.  Surprisingly he read to Copey and Coe listened.  Brotherly love…

About an hour later, we were outside playing on the porch.  I came inside to get a glass of water and answer the phone.  Two minutes later I walked outside to find Mac had finger painted Coe’s face and hair…brotherly torture!

Lately Coe has taken up hitting anytime we tell him “no” or take something away from him.  Mac is his primary target. I constantly hear Mac yelling “Copey hit me” and I’m constantly calling back “Ignore him.”  We have told Mac that he can say “No Coe, don’t hit” but he cannot hit back.  Mac loves getting to discipline Coe but he does not like when we do it! 

Last week Colleen sternly told Coe no after he kept hitting Mac.  She took his toy away from him and went and sat him away from Mac.  Coe started crying and Mac kept trying to give him toys.  Colleen told him he couldn’t do that because Coe was in trouble for not being nice.  Mac almost cried and kept telling Colleen Coe didn’t mean to hit him and it was an accident.  Then today while at Yaya’s house Coe walked up behind Mac and hit him hard on the back.  Yaya got on to Coe and he quickly began crying.  Mac immediately came to Coe’s rescue and told Yaya that it was an accident and Coe was just trying to do high five (yea, while Mac had his back to him!?).  Mac gave Coe a big hug, kissed his cheek and glared at Yaya as if to say don’t mess with my little brother. 

I hope Mac will always be protective of his little brother and I wonder how long it will be for the tables to turn.  Albi keeps telling me that  in the teenager years with Mac’s mouth, temper and average stature his younger (and likely much bigger brother) will be protecting Mac!  Only time will tell.  In the meantime I like seeing this softer side of Mac!