A Loving but Jealous Brother

I was taking a few pictures of Rachel the other day and Nicholas ran up to give her kisses. I was so happy to get pictures of his spontaneous affection for his little sister.







He is always loving on his sister and giving her kisses and hugs. He talks to her about his day and sometimes pretends that she talks back to him. He says that as a big brother, he can hear her talk when no one else can.

I took a few more pictures of Rachel by herself but Nicholas got bored with that. So he put Lego Batman in one of the pictures...



Then just as I was taking another picture of Rachel, he flew Mr. Potato Head in front of the camera to be sure I got a picture of his toy instead of Rachel.



Now anyone that knows me will know that I have always taken tons of pictures of Nicholas and of course I still do. I don't think anything about that has changed. Nicholas is really great about understanding that we need to spend time with his little sister sometimes and that we want to take pictures of her as well. But sometimes he just can't help forcing himself into the spotlight when he doesn't feel like he is getting enough attention. Stuart's parents have warned us that his older brother was a lot like this when Stuart was first born.

Back on the subject of Mr. Potato Head. Nicholas has had this toy for a year or two. He used to love playing with him and making all the funny faces but it's been a while since he's done anything with him. After Christmas, we sat down with him and helped him go through his toys and decide which ones he didn't play with anymore so that we could give them to Rachel or donate them to charity. I asked him about getting rid of Mr. Potato Head and he got upset. He grabbed the Potato Head body and said that this was a giant space station that holds his little spaceships in it. The body piece opens up to store the potato head pieces but it really is the perfect size to hold these 5 or 6 little ships he loves to play with. He is so funny this way. He has tons of toys and some of them are really too young for him. But just like Mr. Potato Head, he finds new and exciting ways to continue to play with them. He is often in Rachel's room playing with her baby toys - they are spaceships or robots or soccer balls to him though!