The Down Side

My middle son has Down Syndrome.

My two other boys know no different and treat him as they should; like the brother/ pest / menace that he is.

The other day, Middle Son swiped Oldest Son's PSP. That in itself would not have been too bad, but, he decided that after playing it, he would see if it could float in the sink.

It didn't.

I did, however, become waterlogged and stop working.

$200.00 down the drain and an extremely angry kid to boot.

I must admit that I sometimes favor Middle Son. The kid has been through so much in his life that it is hard not to. The fact that he comes through with a smile no matter what makes him even more endearing.

So, when Oldest Son found out about the game and freaked out and said he wished he had a normal brother ( as if there is such a thing. I have one and if that is normal then we are all in trouble!) and he hated him and wished he were dead, or at least that he had a lock on his door and he would never, ever, EVER let Middle Son in his room again!!! I took it to heart. It hurt me to hear that stuff, though, if it had been my sibling who had done it when I was younger they would have been lucky to have survived the experience.

So, I thought about it from my Oldest Son's perspective. I let him rant and rave and say terrible things until he was done. Then, I calmly explained to him that I was frustrated too and that sometimes dealing with a kid like MS is really difficult. That even I didn't know what to do sometimes.

Then, I told him his dad and I would make it right. We punished MS for destroying the PSP, we ordered a new one for OS and promised to find a good hiding place for the new one.

After all of this, maybe 1/2 an hour later, OS sought out MS and gave him a hug and apologized for saying mean things about him. He said he loved him and wouldn't want a different brother.

I was so proud of him for not holding a grudge, for seeing that sometimes you just have to let it go and forgive, for seeing that his brother had some challenges, one being that he is an incurable destroyer of electronics.

I love those boys.