Upon capturing this moment I knew that I would use this photo for my sibling’s September 2017 post.
The way Little E is looking at her brother sums up how I think she feels about him. She adores him. It’s so lovely to watch their relationship develop, sometimes there are bad months but September 2017 has been a good month. I think we definitely got the summer holiday mix right and our siblings really enjoyed each other’s company. The first day Ethan went back to school Little E greeted him with lots of cuddles and a kiss. Ethan was unaware of the affection she was showing him but it was so sweet to see.
As Little E gets older she will overtake her brother developmentally, I can only hope that their bond will stay strong. This year they are more or less at the same stage with their talking. Little E clearly has more words and can say sentences but they easily talk to each other in their own way. Ethan will always talk to his sister about the places we are going in the car. It might just be single words he is using but she always responds to him. The big difference we notice is their level of understanding. Ethan’s understanding just isn’t there and I find this heartbreaking. Little E clearly understands what we say and when she isn’t ignoring us we can have small conversations.
I did find this summer that I started to mention to Little E about Ethan’s struggles. If Ethan was having a meltdown about something I found myself telling her what was making Ethan sad. I do wonder how we will explain autism to her as she gets older.
One conversation with my siblings that made me sad this month was about school. Little E told me she would be going to Ethan’s school. Ethan attends SEN school and we are fairly sure that Little E will be going to a mainstream setting. This, of course, is a positive thing for Little E but I was surprised how it saddened me that my children will be at two different schools. I think it highlighted how my children will be leading very different lives and walking very different paths. It also made me realise we might have to explain why to Little E sooner than I was expecting.
