Interacting

In just the past few days, Warren and Dean have become aware of each other.  It started off very slowly about a month ago during nursing and increased to some fights during that time only (bending back fingers, poking eyes, etc).  Then, last week, they started holding hands at the end of each nursing session...super cute.  I think they must have been trying to make up for the excruciating pain they were causing me with mastitis and blebs...ugh.  But it ended there.  Once we were downstairs on their blanket, they had nothing to do with each other.

Dean has really started moving around, army crawling his way around, and getting very efficient at that!  He has started showing his preference for toys, and notices immediately when Warren is playing with what he likes.  Since he's now mobile, he has begun "crawling" over to Warren.  This started off with a very tender moment, in which Dean gave Warren one of his super sweet, super slobbery kisses on the head.  I happened to capture the moment as I was just trying to get a shot of them interacting.  It completely melted my heart.  For about 30 seconds... And then Dean grabbed his face and tried to steal his toy.  Ahh, brothers.


The next day, they engaged in an all out brawl.  I love watching them play together and seeing them interact, both with the tender moments as well as their fighting.  It's just so fun to see them recognize that there is another human being their size right there.  They've been side by side for the months since coming home, and up until now you'd never know.  They would look at me or Andrew, but never each other.  Part of me wondered how much of that was due to all those months isolated in the NICU instead of having contact with each other.  They missed out on 3 months of bonding, those early months all the books say are the most important.  What a blessing to watch them now.  Here's the timeline of the brawl...initiated by Dean coming over, then Warren beating up on him, then Dean pinning Warren down to end it.  Love how he looks up at me at the end, like "what Mom?"