big brothers

Elijah and Haven started a pretend game today while they ate lunch. It went about like this:

She began by declaring that she was a unicorn. He then said that he was a squirrel, eating his cheese. She began by giving him a magic gift of a read bead necklace. He accepted her gift, then declared that they were in danger. She seemed a little hesitant at this turn in the game--this was clearly not the ever-peaceful, woodsy creature-loving, magical land she had imagined it was. But she said ok. Within minutes, somehow he was using his squirrel cheese to make pretend bombs to fight the bad guys and telling her that if she didn't find a way to control his little squirrel self, he would destroy her too. She was still attempting to piece together some kind of magical fairyland thing amidst his war zone. It ended when she realized her attempts were futile, because they were headed towards a Fairy Land World War no matter what. Here is a photo taken moments after they were done with the game. Is that Big Brother Mischievousness in his eyes or WHAT??

Their game made me laugh to myself. It was so very reminiscent of my own childhood days, when I would attempt to play Barbies with my own big brother. He would only agree to play if one of two things would happen: he was allowed to play with his Transformers instead of Barbies, or else he was Ken with superpowers. I knew that either setup would be bad news for my Barbies, but I so desperately wanted him to play that I would always agree.

If he was a Transformer, he would inevitably end up blowing up my Barbie, no matter how many garden parties I invited him to.

If he was Ken with superpowers, he would shoot my Barbie with the bullets that came through Ken's fingers, or the laser beams that came out of his eyes. I would eventually get frustrated, ditch the garden party thing, and try to kill Ken. But Austin would tell me that Barbie didn't have any superpowers, and Ken had a force field, so it was useless. He was my big brother, so I knew he was right. Finally, one time, somehow, I managed to kill Ken, which was when I found out that Ken also had the superpower of being able to come back from the dead. Once, Austin granted my Barbie the superpower of flight, which he demonstrated for me by flying (throwing) her across the room into the garbage. I punished him by chasing his screaming self around the house trying to kiss him--the only way I KNEW I could really get to him.

We laugh pretty hard about this now. But I'd still like to say--once a big brother, always a big brother. I was just with my brother a few weeks ago for a family reunion. Even though we are both adults now, complete with spouses, children, and mortgages, somehow when we are together, we each partly become our 9 and 7 year old selves again. We spent the whole week with him poking my neck in some creepy Vulcan-like way because he knew it freaked me out, and me doing this pregnancy belly dance thing every time he looked at me because I knew it totally creeped him out. And laughing like idiots at it all because we knew how ridiculous it was.

I am so crazy about my brother. He has more than made up for the Barbie-trash incident by being there for me time and time again when I really need him. He loves me. He loves my kids. He married a great woman. He is a good, good man. Who still somehow still thinks that I am perpetually in need of a noogie. What is it with big brothers??

Do any of you have big brother stories?