Where the (little) wild things are

Anyone who has had the manifold blessing (and by manifold I mean what sometimes seems like equal parts blessing and curse) of raising two children will recoil in fear when I dare to write the two words that must be uttered in hushed, sibilant tones: sibling rivalry. Yes indeed, how the words do inspire dread in the hearts of the initiated. And so, too, for Nina and I (it just struck me that I had been calling her "my wife" in the earlier posts, as I imagined for some reason that this was all in some sense anonymous -- until I remarked upon the subtitle of our blog, just another example, as Nina would say, of me being me). As I was saying, so, too for Nina and I. We've been struggling mightily of late with this sibling rivalry thing, and at times it's threatened to beat us. But the beauty and wonder and outright pride we have in Shay and Logan always saves us. And just the other day, a ray of hope split the leaden skies of another difficult day. Logan was in his high chair and Shay, enraptured by his sing-songing laughing presence as she usually is (he's her big brother after all, and until he starts hitting her the spell is unbroken), enraptured she turns from what she's doing and starts crawling toward him. Logan's eyes turn and fix on her, eyes that sometimes fill with a stormy, thundering desire to push or hit or knock down. His eyes fix on her and fill with sunshine, filled like twin fountains by that unquenchable ray of hope; he looks at her and says, "Here comes the Little Wild!"

Nina and I look at each other, our own eyes feeling the warmth of the words. I'm not sure who said it first, but there was an "Awww!" and then a "how cute!" and then the clouds, the scaly armor of the leaden day, began to fall and disappear. There was hope in the Roy-Lewis household, and Logan himself was leading the charge.