Just the Start
It's like watching a dream, in real life.
While our son (20 months at the time) did acknowledge his newborn sister in her first few days at home, it took many more months, probably around the time she began crawling, before he realized she was more than just a thing. That she was a person who had her own wants and personality, just like him.
Maybe he didn’t think of it like that. Perhaps he, like most things, realized that she could be a part of the multitude of routines he’d set for himself and for the family.
At times, it seems that he learns about people and the names of things because of these routines. If we go to this place, we see that person, and do these things. Therefore, he learned to fill in the blank, like an ad-lib. His sister was another noun to insert into things.
Because of her immobility, because of her complete lack of autonomy, she didn’t really have a place in his routines for a while. She just accompanied him on walks, car rides, and to storytime.
As she began to walk and babble, that changed. She realized that he had things she wanted, that he had fun snacks and toys, and maybe she could get their hands on them. She put herself in his life. She presented herself, from a very young age, as a presence not only to be acknowledged but reckoned with.
She did much the same for us, and continues to do so throughout our many sleepless nights and with her newfound ability to meander easily out of a room and hit some ramp up to turbo speed (relative to a new walker). She reaches for things she wants. She, at last, could stride with her true personality on full display.
Soon, she became a core piece of the walks. She was someone to go with him. If she weren’t in the stroller with him, he wouldn’t want to leave. Sure, there were still things that she got in the way of: at storytime, he had to sit in Mama’s lap, not anyone else. This presented a bit of an issue, considering how she couldn’t sit up by herself.
Reasoning with a toddler is difficult; reasoning with a toddler on the spectrum is an adventure. However, in his mind, she was meant to be there. Regardless of how much she frustrated him, he wanted her there. She belonged.
We’ll never know what he thought of her for many months, nor even what he thinks of her now. Asking, “Is your sister your friend?” leads to a blank stare and probably an echo of that same question. It won’t get us anywhere. “Do you want to play with her?” “Play?”
Our son is a child who has his things, like all toddlers at this age. He has his toys, he has his way with his toys, and even if he doesn’t literally own them (i.e., equipment at a public facility), if he plays with them, he considers them his own until such time that he leaves that place. Even if he hasn’t touched a hoola-hoop in thirty minutes, he will be keeping an eye on it from time to time to make sure it hasn’t moved.
This is true even for toys that he had as an infant, toys he probably has no memory of but has regained a sudden interest in because, to him, they are new. They’re a bit boring, sure, but still something to play with, he, in his mind, didn’t have before. The problem, I’m sure you’re realizing, is that these toys are for his sister, who also has a great interest in them.
What we’re lucky about is that our son has clear favorites within the toy lineup. The “hands-off, nobody else touches these” toys and belongings. His trains, cars, and his stuffed animal, Little Bear, for example. So, in his mind, there’s sort of a tier list regarding how much he truly cares for some things.
And there are toys of his that she doesn’t care for too much. While everything is edible and of interest to explore, she’s begun to figure out what she likes and doesn’t like. She’s turned the corner into a major love of Squishmallows and Ms. Rachel, and while our son also loves Ms. Rachel, it’s not to the extent she does. So while he’ll play with the Ms. Rachel puzzle we have, she can sit with it for a much longer time than he can or will.
I think he’s picked up on this, on her interests. And in doing so, he picked up on the fact that she is someone who can be emotionally attached to things in the same way he is, and can give responses as such.
One of our friends gifted us a Squishmallow, the first one that led us down this new obsessive path of a vampiric-dressed Sonic the Hedgehog. While it was meant for both children, she clung to it first and most, while he was content with his stuffed animal, Little Bear. Sonic began to go everywhere with her, on walks, in the car.
Once, when she was upset, our son snagged up Sonic and handed it to her (more like shoved it in her face, but he’s learning). In the car, when she was bored and he realized Sonic was in reach, he picked it up and tossed it at her car seat for her to have.
It was at once an instance of sharing and also looking out for her, in a way that she deeply came to love. Her little smirk, one of immense joy, is one I’ll never forget.
At times, their relationship has felt like a bit of two gremlins occupying the same space and occasionally coming to collide with one another (literally) to cause mischief or to share an experience.
For instance, in an example of their conjoined energy creating a bit of chaos, they were listening to the Laurie Berkner song “Goldfish” when our daughter held on tight to my hands and found it fun when I bounced her up and down during the chorus. Our son thought this was hilarious and jumped all around the room during the chorus. We listened to the song several times in a row, and each time, the two of them giggled together and at each other during the chorus of the song. Of course, he had to ensure it was perfectly replicated, so I couldn’t move where I was sitting, and only I was allowed to bounce her.
Experiences like this were becoming more common, but were also mostly manufactured by us, the parents.
Until one evening, as he was sitting in his bath and she was getting ready for hers, he swung his arms into the water to make a great splash. And she laughed. Laughed a lot.
He paused, looking at her curiously. He did it again. Splash!
Major giggle.
He smiled. “Laughing!” he exclaimed, and splashed again. She laughed. He cackled. Water was getting everywhere, and she started bouncing up and down while holding onto the bathtub, urging him to keep splashing. And he did, until her attention (like that of an infant’s) was yanked elsewhere.
But the message was clear: this wasn’t just someone who wandered around the house and sometimes got in his way, sometimes went on walks with him. This was someone who also loved to laugh, also loved to be funny.
This was someone to play with.
“Hey, let’s go wake up your sister!”
It’s become the new way of getting her up from a nap, or at least going to her room to see her. If we’re downstairs, he blitzes upstairs. If we’re upstairs, he drops everything and hurries to her room. He swings her door open, runs to her crib, and starts jumping up and down.
She joins him, the two howling at one another.
If the situation is reversed, then she comes soaring into his room, flopping onto the ground before pulling herself up by the bars of his crib, daring him to wake up and come play.
When we head upstairs for bedtime, he has to rush up the stairs ahead of her, and then turn around at the top, look for her, and laugh as she comes around the corner in their own game of hide-and-seek or peekaboo.
You can see the routines forming here, and it was from those that the foundation of their friendship has formed. Yet I don’t want to entirely give credit to this friendship only to routine, only to the nature of how his little brain works.
It was an effort on both of their ends. She has always wanted to be with him, to hang out with him. The first time we put them side-by-side in a cart, she was over-the-moon happy. She rested her little hand on his back to keep herself steady, reassure herself that she was with him. They rarely hold hands, rarely even exist in the same exact sphere, but it always lightens her up a bit more to be with him, to know that they are together.
And for him, it was not a matter of finding a place for her in his life of routines and occupations. It was in finding someone to laugh with, someone who enjoyed being a cheeky little monkey just like him.
These days, they’re more than happy occupying the same space together, she with her mountain of Squishmallows and he with his cars and books. From time to time, they come to frustrate one another as siblings do, when she accidentally knocks something over or dares to come within a few steps of one of his toys (even if she has no interest in said toy).
He loves that she is walking and getting into her own trouble. He loves that she can follow along on his adventures at playgrounds and interact in her own way at play places. As much as she wants to hang out with him, so too does he with her. Hiccups are expected at this age, and, honestly, throughout the rest of their lives.
It’s all new for both of them. They’re learning so much every day, experiencing life in such exciting and even frustrating ways. Now more than ever, they’re doing it together.
And as their parent, I couldn’t be prouder and happier for the future.
To see them together like this is beyond a dream. It is everything I could ever want. It won’t happen like this every night. Maybe this sort of peace will be rare. But I’ll hold onto it as tight as I can, and continue nurturing these two, as they have come to look out for one another.