"Sorry John"

Remember back when I thought Tommy & Johnny were gonna be best friends?

I'm still hanging on to that hope, but the first few weeks were a little rough.

When Tommy came to the hospital to meet Tommy I had pictures in my head of our brand new family of 4 huddling around our newest addition counting his tiny toes together. I was certain Tommy would want to hold him and snuggle him and tenderly kiss his head. And these pictures came from other people's actual photos of their kids meeting new babies in the hospital.

When my parents brought Tommy to the hospital to meet John when he was just a day old. Grandma walked in and went to the hand sanitizer. Grandpa walked in and walked to the hand sanitizer. Tommy cowered behind the door, took one peek at me holding "Bee-bay John" and walked around the farthest wall from me glaring at me out of the corner of his eye all the way. He landed on the couch, face in his hands and cried peeking up above his hands to make sure we were watching.

Even after someone else took John, Tommy refused to give me the hug and kiss I knew he'd been saving for me since we snuck out in the middle of the night on him. He wouldn't talk to me or even look at me. For days.

He hated me and he hated John. And he really hated that I was holding John.

He finally acknowledged that John existed on day 3 when Stella was hovering over John's carseat oohing and ahhhing and Tommy knew he was missing something cool.

After a week of John being around all the time, I think Tommy finally figured out that he wasn't going home. That John would be living with us for.ev.er.

Although he wasn't thrilled with the idea, he started to tolerate John.

But the biggest leap in progress came at week 2. I was feeding John and Tommy was jumping from the couch to the love sac (an acceptable form of play in our house) when he lost his footing and wound up sitting on John's lap.

"Sorry John!" He quipped and leaped from couch to love sac without missing a beat.

Somehow the part that connected for Tommy was that falling down = "Sorry John".

I didn't notice it until now, but Tommy falls down a lot. And John got apologized to A LOT.

John is now 3 weeks old and Tommy likes to throw blankets at over him and count his tiny toes when they kick out of his britches for just a second at a time. Yesterday he even kissed John's sweet and soft head.

So the first few weeks were rough, and Tommy still throws a few extra fits each day. And Tommy is not thrilled that for John crying earns attention but for Tommy crying earns time out. But I'm fairly confident that eventually they'll be best friends.

Because sometimes I catch Tommy staring at John the same way the rest of us do.