{"id":3259,"date":"2015-02-02T13:14:40","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T18:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=3259"},"modified":"2015-02-02T14:46:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T19:46:00","slug":"brotherly-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/02\/brotherly-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Brotherly Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"XMAS<\/a><\/p>\n

The sound sleep hums its siren song, waves crashing in a cadence and rhythm I hope will put my youngest son to sleep. Zach slides into his bed, and asks me to sing him \u201chis song.\u201d In my hackneyed way I comply, ending with his favorite verse, the one where Mommy, Daddy and Justin love him best. He is momentarily silent, and I adjust his blankets to more tightly cocoon him. He rolls over, looks up at me and asks \u201cHow do you know Justin loves me- he doesn\u2019t say it.\u201d<\/p>\n

My heart clutches. I want to say \u201cbaby, I know he does with my mother\u2019s heart, I know.\u201d But he is almost eight now, requires facts to back up most of my declarations (particularly the ones surrounding the efficacy of homework.) He will want proof.<\/p>\n

And I have it in spades.<\/p>\n

I tell him I\u2019ll spin him a tale of brotherly love. A tale of how almost every time he cried as a baby his big brother would bring me the toy baby\u2019s bottle to cease his distress. I\u2019ll tell him how Justin loved to sit in Zach\u2019s crib with him, would at times briefly hold his hand and squeeze it tightly. I\u2019ll share with him that he is the only child whom Justin has ever let share his toys without protest. I\u2019ll recall for him how my eldest son, who allows only an elite few into his inner circle of touch, welcomes my youngest son\u2019s embraces. Sometimes, he even hugs him back. I\u2019ll tell him that after a long absence Justin\u2019s face lights up when Zach enters a room.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll explain to him that love doesn\u2019t always require words.<\/p>\n

He rolls over again with an \u201cokay mom,\u201d settles into the niche he\u2019s created in his bed. I smile as I quietly leave the room, comforted that I can give him this. There is so much uncertainty in our world, but this I know for sure.<\/p>\n

My eldest son loves his younger brother.<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t need to say it out loud.<\/p>\n

The love is just there for the taking. And it\u2019s a beautiful thing indeed.<\/p>\n

For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com\/
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

Follow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sound sleep hums its siren song, waves crashing in a cadence and rhythm I hope will put my youngest son to sleep. Zach slides into his bed, and asks me to sing him \u201chis song.\u201d In my hackneyed way I comply, ending with his favorite verse, the one where Mommy, Daddy and Justin love […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":3261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[293,295,294],"class_list":["post-3259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county","tag-autism","tag-autism-acceptance","tag-autism-awareness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/XMAS-2014-0171.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-Qz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}