Eric, aged 3.1, and Stuart, aged 1.0, are getting along better by the day.

Stuart is starting to recognize a few written words and numbers, so we’re turning up the complexity of the baby puzzles during play time. Yesterday, surrounded by dozens of little toy vehicles, Juimiin asked Stuart to give her two cars. Stuart thought about it, and handed over one, then got confused. (It must have been coffee time or something.) Anyway, Eric saw that Stuart was having trouble, so he sneaked over, put another toy car into Stuart’s hand, and sort of gently pushed the charged hand toward Juimiin. Stuart was still confused (note to self: baby esperesso tomorrow).

Stuart’s current favorite book is Dig dig digging, and brings the book to me or Juimiin regularly to have it read to him. This morning, it was reading practice time, and Eric was also interested. So, we killed two birds with one stone: I asked Eric to read to Stuart. He did – and not only that – he traced the words one by one, to help his little brother keep track.

Oh yeah, and Eric is teaching Stuart how to pee on a toilet. Raising kid #2 looks to be a piece of cake, with three of us sharing the load.