Brotherly Love

Aidan has been in the habit of coming to our bed whenever he wakes up in the middle of the night (one of the joys of a toddler bed!). There is no set pattern...sometimes it's around midnight when he shuffles in and other times it's four in the morning when I feel 32 lbs of toddler boy flop over my head. We've had a few night of reprieve, though. Aidan's been waking up about the time Ed is getting ready for work...much to my joy! It means a few more minutes of uninterrupted sleep and one less bruise on the head. Unfortunatly, these past few days, Conner has been taking over where Aidan's left off. He's the one waking up at 5 in the AM!!! I hear him loud and clear on the baby monitor. In fact, I think the folks at Walmart can hear him.
Anyhoo, I woke up at 5 one morning to the sound of Conner babbling and cooing away. He has a little lamb in his bed that plays "twinkle, twinkle, little star" when you pull its tail. In my sleep haze, I heard the lamb playing music. I thought, OK he's not crying. He's playing, that's a good sign- maybe he'll go back to sleep". So I laid there and tried to doze back to sleep. I thought how sweet it was to hear the sounds of his baby talk. I heard the lamb stop playing music and thought, OK, maybe now he'll go back to sleep. A moment passed and I didn't hear anything. OK, wonderful! I can go back to sleep! Then, I heard the lamb start playing music again. In my sleep deprived, cloudy and hazed mind, I had a logical thought: Conner can't pull the tail on the lamb. Something's not right. I immediately bolted out of bed and headed to Conner's room. I really couldn't believe what I saw: Conner at one end of the bed, smiling away and laughing and AIDAN at the other end of the bed, holding the lamb. I asked Aidan what he was doing in Conner's bed. He replied: Sleeping, Momma, sleeping" in a manner that suggested how could he be doing anything else and how ridiculous it was to ask the obvious. I put Aidan back to bed in his room (which he didn't like, by the way) and tried to go back to sleep myself. As I laid in bed replaying the episode, I thought about how much Aidan loves Conner. He adores him and knows that he has a special relationship with Conner. In a way, I'm a little jealous. There is such a big age gap between my siblings and me. I basically grew up an only child. I look at Aidan and Conner and think they are starting out in this world together with a best friend by their side. Is that awesome or what!? Now, if I can only get Aidan to stop biting Conner's ear!