The boys' update -- July 2007

My rant about Big Al's surgery is below. This one is just for fun.

Our boys continue to be an absolute joy. Without exaggeration, they are the best two little guys ever and we couldn't be any more proud or love them any more. At this time last year we could not have imagined how much fun they would be. We have said it before, we don't know how they could both be so perfect and yet so different. You certainly couldn't have said, Allan will be on a G-tube and oxygen and a monitor still and have had a good reaction from either of us. Allan is absolutely amazing, though. He has come so far. Today Miss Julie had him standing at the couch, playing with toys on the seat and up on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth, ready to launch to crawling. And he was loving it. He kept smiling at her and was really trying to do what she wanted. It helps that Griff is around. At one point Allan was on his hands and knees and Griff crawled up to him and they were head to head. Julie was so excited because Allan clearly had an "ah ha" moment and realized that the other kid was doing this same thing. Like, dude, I can do that, too. He's getting stronger all the time and more and more engaged with what is going on around him.
For his part, Griff can hardly stand it when someone is paying attention to Allan instead of him. This morning he just kept crawling over to where Julie and Allan were (nevermind that Mommy and Flora were free and could hold him and play with him). He had to be in the middle of it all. Julie was teasing him and ignoring him, but Griff kept moving around and around until she acknowledged him. I think he would have ended up nose-to-nose if that's what it took to get her to pay attention to him.
When I got home tonight, they were so sweet. I was sitting on the floor with Allan in my lap and Griff wanted to be in the middle of things so he was standing in front of me. Allan kept wrapping his arms around his brother and bouncing and Griff kept petting his brother's head (gentle, gentle). It was so sweet that it about broke my heart (of course, then I realized that Allan was pulling his brother close so that he could kick him and that what I thought was Griffith kissing his brother was him trying to bite him on the forehead -- other than that, it was really sweet.)
Anyway, Dad reports that Griffith actually brought a toy over for Allan to play with tonight (as opposed to just ripping toys away) so we may have turned a corner.
In other news, Griff has managed to string together 3 steps at a time, but he usually reconsiders that course of action after 1 to 2 steps. We still aren't rushing him.
So that's the update at the moment. The boys are supposed to visit Aunt Kate on Saturday (with the help of Cousin Jennifer and God). A two hour road trip is really all we need to test every one's nerves!