The best baba

Yesterday the kids were just driving me nuts. It was one of those days where I wondered why I ever decided to have kids in the first place. They were both whiny and cranky and needy and by 4:00 I had had my fill. I set them about cleaning out Elle's toybox in the living room. I told them to take everything out and sort out thing that didn't belong there, things that needed new batteries and things that were broken and needed to be tossed. You can imagine my suprise when they actually listened and dug right in.

For a good 45 minutes they sat on the floor together and cleaned out that toybox. They found things that they had forgotten were in there and that seemed to keep them interested and involved in the task. I sat on the couch reading a book and marveling at my own genius.

When they got to the bottom of the toybox they were still going strong. Each time Joseph would pull something out of the toybox Elle would squeal with delight. That is, utill he pulled out the Shrek puppet. Joseph put the puppet on his hand and made it dance around for Elle. For some reason this really scared her. Her eyes got big and watery, her lower lip came out and her voice got all shakey as she said "No puppet, puppet all gone, all gone puppet!"

I started to tell Joseph that Elle was getting upset but before I could get two words out he looked at Elle and noticed all on his own that she was nearly crying. (You have to understand that this is huge for Joseph. He's not real quick at picking up on other people's emotions.) As quick as he could he tore the puppet off his hand and threw it under the couch. He yelled "You puppet! You stay away from my little sister!" Then he turned back to Elle and in as gentle a voice as you can imagine he said "It's ok Elle, it's all gone now. Baba made it go away. You don't have to be scared."

Elle looked at him with what I can only call pure love and adoration. "Ohhhhh" she whispered, her voice still quaking "Sank you Baba."

And then they hugged.

I kid you not. I was just bawling. That made my night right there. That made me remember why I had kids. I didn't even care that in the end I was the one who had to pick all the toys up off the floor or that the toybox somehow seems more full now than it did before the kids cleaned it out.

I'm not saying I have the best kids in the world (ok, maybe I am saying that just a little bit) but I am saying that I don't think you could find any two kids more suited to each other as brother and sister. It's so fun to watch them together.

Oh, and before I forget: "Finsens" are raisins. Elle will never learn to say it right though because now the whole family says "finsens". It's like how we all picked up on Joseph's way of saying "whatyousaid?" instead of "what did you say?"