A best friend for life

So this weekend, after weeks of pestering from Nathan, I finally gave in. We moved Grace’s bed into her big brother’s room for a sleepover.

Just for one night, I said.

Erm… how about two nights?

Hmmmm…

PLEEEEEEEEEEEEASE…

Ooookay… Two nights. Just for this weekend.

YEEEEEEAAAH!!!!!!

Apart from some extra pillow talk time in the dark, they woke each other up at the crack of dawn for more talking and play time. Normally they wake each other up pretty early on most days anyway, but this weekend they got started at an even more ungodly hour.

It was the highlight of the weekend for them.

By Sunday evening it was back to the usual set up as we got everything ready for school and our regular weekday routine the next day. They bid a woeful farewell to one another.

I miss kor-kor so, soooo much… Grace lamented as I tucked her into her own bed that night.

Even though her big brother was right next door.

Talk about drama.

They’re now four years into this relationship.

Set to be each other’s oldest and best friend for life.

Already they have a multitude of inside jokes between them.

The other day over dinner, Nathan said the word ‘pea’.

That’s all it took for Grace to double over in teary laughter.

Pea??? Why pea??? I asked.

YAAAHAHAHAHAHAHEHEHEHEHEEE…

PEA!!!!!

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… (Oh… ooooh… hooo…. phew!)

There is absolutely no other person the entire world who makes Grace laugh as much and as hard as her big brother. And the same goes vice versa.

They came up with wacky nicknames for one another…

And they’re a constant mutual source of entertainment to each other…

...so according to Nathan, this is what you should do after drinking hot chocolate

A post shared by Serenely (@livingserenely) on Jun 30, 2017 at 6:32am PDT

Nathan is finally beginning to accept the fact that he cannot marry Grace. Though Grace is now starting up that topic again on her part.

People often ask me what’s our secret.

How did we manage to get these two to get so adorably devoted to each other?

Well it helps that Nathan is tremendously patient and such a big sweetheart himself.

And it also helps that Grace herself is an incredibly loyal sidekick.

There is no one single magic formula to making a sibling relationship work perfectly. And these two are far from perfect. There are still many hair-yanking, shoulder-shoving, complaining-whiny episodes between all the sweet marshmallow moments.

Though the one thing we do try to do is this: treat them as a team.

I hope this one thing will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

That no matter what happens, they’ve got each other’s backs.

sib.ling
/sɪblɪŋ/ noun. A best friend for life.

P.S. A helpful read on some tips to fostering great sibling relationships from childhood.