here’s looking at you

The two and the three year old gaze into each others eyes, laughing, clearly communicating. The eyes, the smiles, the shapes of the faces are so similar you’d call them the same. GM looks on with a familiar sense of wonder, enjoyment and sheer thankfulness.

GM is watching her youngest daughter enjoying the company of the boy who is not her son but is her daughters brother.

The boys are the unforeseen delight of adopting the girls, an extension to the family that is deeply enjoyable.

……..

The extended family get together is lovely, spent at an urban farm and ‘country manor’.  The kids run and run in the wide open spaces (to the point of almost vanishing for LML – still no elastic then), they bounce off of each other, collide and embrace and shove and laugh.  Today’s get together was a special one as GM had invited the families of the half siblings, but neither family had responded, which was fine.  “Our four had a lovely time” as the boys mum, HH, put it.

There were the ‘magic’ moments ..

♥ Three year old DH putting his arms around GM’s neck, saying her name and giving her a cuddle

♥ Lolly leaning against, sitting on and laying on HH throughout the day

♥ GM pushing both the boys across the grass on the push chair, much to their delight

♥ JH and LML playing ‘you can’t catch me’, and LML actually chasing her brother for a few seconds

♥ CD spinning child after child around, as they clamour for their next turn

The only negative was seeing LML’s social isolation, and ‘difference’ so clearly.  Her lack of ‘elastic’ that means that she will just go; how she ‘cranks things up’ so that her brothers become harder to manage; how she plays so much on her own even when her beloved older brother is available and willing.

The girls have a lovely time, and the boys object to having to part from them.  The Mostly Functional Parents are both warmed immeasurably and quietly saddened by the day.

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