Little or Big?

Yesterday, after Corbin had made his bed, put away clothes, and brought all his dirty clothes to the laundry room I told him what a big boy he is. He was cuddling in my lap and he looked up and said, "I'm your big boy, Mom, and Brian is your little boy."

Corbin and Brian are only 18 months apart, yet this is how Corbin feels and he has said this to me on many occasions. I usually correct him and say, "No, Brian is a big boy too." This time I thought about it a bit more before answering.

I want Brian to be seen by the world as a five-year-old, as a "big boy". That's my protector-mama-bear mentality. Yet, he gives the world a very different image in the way that he still has that baby giggle, how he sucks his thumb and twirls my hair, when he wants to be carried everywhere, and of course, by his very limited language. Most adults don't look at him and think "big boy", how am I to expect my 7-year-old to?

So instead of answering Corbin with my usual response I said, "I think parts of Brian are a big boy and parts of him are a little boy still."

Corbin seemed to like that response. "Yeah, like when he always remembers to close doors and turn off lights," he said, unaware that those are really parts of his little brother's OCD routines, "That's a big boy because I can't even remember to do that!"