A Tale of Two Sisters: A Blossoming Love

(No, this is not the synopsis for a Lifetime Movie about two sisters, separated at birth and raised on opposite sides of the "tracks" who are reunited after 30 years when one sisters child needs a bone marrow transplant and she can't give it to her child because she has some rare disease so her FBI husband discovers she has an identical twin living down the road...blah blah blah)

I've talked about M's distant love for Val before on the blog...when Val was born (almost 8 months ago) M wanted nothing to do with her. I am talking she would not even enter the same room. Slowly she learned to live with sweet Val gal, as she realized Val was here to stay. M would touch her hand and giggle or give her a kiss on the head and run away. We finally got them to take a photo together, although the first time M gave us about 5 seconds before she pushed Val away. Now I can actually get them to sit next to each other for a few minutes, and it warms my heart that M is growing to love her little sister.

Holding hands in their "warm-up suits" as my dad calls them

Whenever we go out as a group M will say to people, "that's Val. She's my sister. She loves me." Followed by something like "she's so little and cute" or "Val's so silly."

Val thinks M is the most amazing thing on earth. She could sit for hours and just watch M do what she does: run around the house while yelping, doing a silly dance, you name it, it is pure entertainment for Val. Whenever they are within arms reach of each other Val immediately reaches out for M's tight boingy curls and gets her hand all stuck in there and laughs. Or she just reaches out to touch M's face...this M is still not a big fan of.

When Val happens to reach out for M's hand, M will always linger a little bit before pulling away. She will say something like "Aw, Val loves me. She wants to hold my hand," and it just melts my heart to see the two of them showing that sort of affection for each other.

But today M took it to a whole other level, one that brought tears to my eyes.

As we were descending the stairs, fully dressed and ready for school, M somehow took a major tumble and hit her face on two stairs before landing on her back on the landing. I was walking behind her carrying Val, and immediately ran to her side. My first instinct was to scoop her up in my free arm, so I did and sat on the stairs with an obviously shaken little 3 year old in one arm and a drooling babe in my other. In true Val fashion, she reached out her little porky hand toward Marlo's hand and in wanting to avoid an accidental hair pull to add to the commotion I pulled her away. And then M did the funniest thing...

Through her tears she said to me "I want to hold Val's hand Mom! I want to hold Val's hand!" and she reached out her shaking hand and grabbed Val's hand in hers. I couldn't believe my eyes or ears as we sat there for what seemed like eternity (was probably 30 seconds in reality) and I watched my oldest find comfort in her baby sister's tiny little hand.

An hour later we were at the docs, M was examined and they found nothing major other than some scrapes and bruising by her eye. After a donut (for her) and some bacon (for me :) from Whole Foods she is back to her normal self and resting at home.

So while it was a hectic morning, there was definitely a moment in there that I will treasure forever.