"Brotherly love"

I get lots of stories from people like us who have raised little boys who are close in age. Almost always and seldom without fail, they are stories of love or hate: two little guys who can’t get enough of each other and grow into best friends for life, or a competitive, get outa my way, I’m doing this first and best kind of relationship that follows them all the way to the grave.

It seems when people speak of brotherly love, it is either the genuine, loyal, protective variety, or it’s the tongue in cheek, sarcasm that arises when they see two siblings duking it out in the school yard. A mother’s obvious choice is door number one, but sometimes-although it may be hard to believe-kids have a will of their own.

We’re trying to mold our boys into being the kind of brothers that the other can’t live without. Sometimes it seems to be working. From the time he was tiny to this very day, it never fails: the first words out of Brisco’s mouth every morning are, “Where’s Coopa?” And if Brisco dares take too long a nap in the afternoon, Cooper is beside himself for his first and best mate.

They play pretty well together, most of the time. They mimic one another at the drop of a hat, and that door swings both ways. I always tell Cooper his little brother is watching, but the truth is, Cooper is watching too. If the little show-off does something to get a laugh from the crowd, you can bet the big show-off will try the same trick.

They are starting to display their manly nature and wrestle with each other as boys enjoy doing. Cooper is bigger and can do more damage, but Brisco is really pretty tough; he always takes more than I expect. They call their game (created by dad) “tackle down” and it helps fill the baseball off-season with a little mid-winter football fun in the yard. All bundled up in mittens and layered down to their skivvies, they get out in that cold winter air, dad on his knees, and play football-one man per team. I guess Brisco will be big enough to really take some hits this year.

My favorite shows of brotherly love are those precious moments when I catch them hugging, in genuine adoration and appreciation for each other. It melts a mother’s heart-but it doesn’t leave a mess-because this Hallmark moment never lasts more than a second before one of them is squeezing too tight in an effort to “smash his head like a pancake”, or some other fun experiment that boys seem to like to try.

On Saturday we were at the ball field helping Dad with some field work. He put out the slip and slide so the boys would have something fun to do, but when the excitement of that wore off, all they really wanted to do was “help”. I could only admire the way they were working together to pull out a couple of hundred pound push mowers: one in front pulling away, and one in back pushing and spouting directions. It reminded me a lot of me and their dad. But they were working together toward a common goal, and they’d had no intervention from the grown ups.

I glanced at them once, and they were pushing those lawn mowers around the bases as fast as their tiny legs would move. Then next time I looked up I saw that Cooper had high-centered on the infield grass and Brisco was halfway to the centerfield fence. But they had done it together, and you can bet they thought they were doing their part to pitch in.

On those rare occasions when I hear them say, “I love you” or when I witness kindness and compassion after an accident or a fall, I know that God’s plan to give us these two little boys-so closely together in time and space-was just another example of His mark of genius.

After surviving the craziness of that first year, I can’t imagine today having one without the other following closely behind. The first saying, “Come on, Bisco, I’ll teach you how to pee off the porch.” And the other saying, “But Coopa, I want to wash the window.”

Yes, there is something almost perfect about having a live-in playmate-one who adores your every move, will follow you to the ends of the earth, and will sell you out to mom in an instant for five seconds with his favorite race car. But that’s brotherly love for ya.

And that’s All in a day’s work!