Oh, Brother

This is one of those days when honoring the promise to post every day is hard. Thing 1 is having a difficult weekend, and I am at my wit's end with his ability to explode into a fit of screaming fury or a pile of weeping mush with absoluty no warning and next to no provocation.  It changes the tenor of all of the interactions in our house to edgy, tension soaked exchanges that feel more like negotiations than family dialogue.  I wish that I were better at difusing Nico during these high tension periods, but I fear that one of the reasons he gets to me so is that we are so much alike.  Hard-headed mother and hard-headed son collide, and neither one can understand why the other one won't bend.

The saddest/sweetest part of it is that Linc absolutely hates to see someone else cry, so all weekend Linc has been rushing to his brother's side, desperately trying to console him with hugs.  Nico, however, doesn't want to be touched when he is upset and generally pushes Linc away or runs off to hide in a corner, wailing mournfully but unwilling to accept any comfort less than my total defeat and unconditional surrender.  Which, of course, leaves Linc floating and frustrated and wanting to help.  Which often means that Linc comes to me to be held and perhaps accept some of the comfort he's unable to extend.  And, in turn, Nico gets even more angry that I am giving the sympathy he really wants but is unwilling or unable to accept from me in his heightened state.  It's a frustrating cycle, and luckily it has been playing out less and less often in our house (except for this weekend's unfortunate relapse).

On the whole, I am incredibly proud of how Nico treats his brother. He has sat through countless hours of in home therapy, beig told to sit down and be quiet and stay out of the way because "these people are not here to see you, they are here to see your brother."  He has sat through more doctor's visits, hours in the E.R., and walks up and down hospital halls than most kids three times his age, all to maintain the health of his brother. He speaks to Lincoln with signs (and actually knows many more signs than Sam and I do), sings Lincoln's favorite songs to cheer him when he is sad, and uses his newfound reading skills to read Lincoln books.  I have seen the seeds of true compassion sprout from Nico's relationship with his brother, seen a regard for others manifest itself in ways that I can trace directly back to interactions with his brother.  When Linc was born, we worried that we were dooming Nico to a life of ridicule by association, either that or a kind of default responsibility to defend and advocate for someone seen as a complete outsider during the years when all he will want in the world is to be seen as one of the group.

Now, I am grateful that Nico will be forced to learn these lessons at an early age.  I am convinced that the pursuit of "cool" is the problem with pretty much everyone under the age of 25, and many over 25 who never learn to let go of the idea that they can still be popular, still be cool although cool basically has an age cap of about 22, tops.  I hope that having a brother like Lincoln will help Nico learn before he gets caught up in the vortex of tween and teen acceptance mongering that there are deeper issues in life that demand our attention.  Recently, I was happy to stumble upon this article written by a sibling of a person with special needs saying that, in effect, that's exactly what her brother did in her life.

So tonight, with Nico literally crying and pulling at my legs to get me to step away from the computer and engage him (either in attention or battle, it's yet to be seen), I will have to hope that these days of extreme emotion are simply the growing pains of a young mind learning to open up and let in the light.