If only everyone saw him like his baby brother does

The baby wakes up first in our house, followed by Max, who goes into his room. As I'm lying in bed, half asleep, I hear Max making noises and Ben laughing. It is one of the best sounds I've ever heard.

The kids each have their own special relationship with Ben. He always has a squeal for Sabrina when she walks in the door at the end of the day, and loves to be held by her—so much so that sometimes he'll cling to her and refuse to come to me. Lately, she walks around the house with him as he toddles like Frankenstein, clutching her finger.

Ben likes to poke at Max's face—his nose, his cheeks, his eyes, his hair—and Max gladly tolerates it. Max is really great at picking up stuff Ben drops off his high chair, which happens approximately every 3.5 seconds. Lately, he is trying to teach him to talk. "Say 'thank you!'" Max requested the other day, after I gave Ben lunch. Ben just grinned.

Sometimes, Max and I stand there and laugh delightedly at Ben, who has taken to saying "Yeah!" when you ask him a question. It's his only word, and it is far better than "No!" We are pretty sure Ben doesn't know exactly what's being asked, but he does get that when you hear a question, you give a response.

Oh, and the kisses: When Max leans over to Ben in his high chair, Ben will open his mouth and plant his lips on Max's cheek. I could keel over from the cuteness.

Ben doesn't think that his big brother talks funny or acts different. He doesn't feel sorry for him. He'll grow up thinking that he's just Max. Sure, there will be questions down the road but his concept of Max will not change: that he is a cheerful, big-hearted, animated guy with an infectious giggle. Who fights with him over his fire trucks.

Sometimes, when I watch Ben gaze adoringly at Max, I wish that more people could see Max for who he is, instead of mainly seeing his disability.

A different kind of special needs: Helping siblings of kids with special needs

"You care about Max more than you care about me!" has become one of Sabrina's favorite phrases. This is both because she wants attention, and she feels Max gets more of mine. Every single time she says that, I am reminded that she has special needs, too.

Sabrina knows I write this blog for other parents of kids with special needs, and she has her Love That Sabrina blog. We often go on Mommy and me outings, ditto for her and Dave. She's gone to a couple of Sibshops sessions, and I plan to send her to the next one in our area. I am very aware that siblings of kids with special needs can be sensitive to the attention their brothers and sisters get. A friend of mine who has a brother with autism once told me how resentful she was of all the attention he got growing up, and I've never forgotten it.

Max does need major attention—with bath time, bedtime, mealtime, climbing, going downstairs, handwriting, grasping objects and numerous other things requiring fine-motor skills. He usually feeds himself these days, a major accomplishment. But food sometimes still dribbles out, especially soup. He loves the stuff but it's the worst consistency for him. Anything too liquid-y is hard to retain. We sometimes add rice or small pieces of tofu, but he often likes it straight up.

Sabrina and I have talked about Max needing help with stuff. But she's 8.

And so we were at a sushi restaurant this weekend and Dave was spooning miso soup into Max's mouth and Sabrina started getting pouty. And so I said, half-jokingly, "Would you like a bib, too?"

And she said "Yes." So I put one of Max's Cars paper bibs on her.

Then I asked, "Do you want me to feed you some soup?"

And she said "Yes!" So I spoon-fed her soup as Dave spoon-fed Max soup.

She ate her sushi (Philadelphia Roll) by herself. But then she decided she wanted to be a "messy baby" when she had her mochi (a sticky-rice concoction with ice-cream inside).

When we were done eating, she walked over, sat on my lap and snuggled her head into my neck and we just sat that way for a while.

She fell asleep as we drove home. She still looks so baby-ish and delicious when she sleeps, and my heart went mushy.

I don't have all the answers. I can just keep talking to her, give her as much attention as possible and hope it sticks.

A special kind of sibling torture

You might think this is a scene typical of many family bathrooms—a chain of cars stuck to tiles, the sort of design a kid would make during tub time. Actually, it is a form of Sabrina sibling torture.

Max can't raise his arms very high because they're stiff (thank you, cerebral palsy). So usually, he'll line up cars way at the bottom of the wall, where he can reach them. Sabrina likes to dart into the bathroom when he's not around and arrange them up high out of his reach. When Max pulls open the curtain at night for his bath and sees this arrangement, he screeches. It's sort of like the shower scene in Psycho, but not.

There's the standard sibling teasing and tormenting. But then there's the kind directed at a sibling with special needs, the kind that involves Sabrina doing things that target Max's physical challenges. Like when she holds toys up and out of his reach. Or when he wants her to write "Max" on a drawing he made and she writes "Sabrina." Or when she gives him a barely perceptible shove and it totally throws him off balance.

I've had conversations with her in which I've explained she has to be kind to Max because she's his sister and and he needs a little extra help, love and caring.

They don't seem to have penetrated.

Sabrina did attend her very first Sibshops session last month. There were about six other little girls there, and I dropped her off then returned three hours later. They did some crafts and played games geared toward opening up conversations about siblings—like "Popcorn," in which the girls sat in a circle and each wrote two things about themselves and two things about their siblings on slips of paper. They crumpled them up, threw them into the center, and then took turns picking papers and discussing stuff. Sabrina's words about Max (can you guess?): "purple" and "spaghetti."

It's gonna take a lot more Sibshops and maturity for her to chill. I'm a little scared because I basically didn't stop torturing my sister till I went off to college. Hopefully, things will be different between Sabrina and Max because there's a very different sort of dynamic.

Meanwhile, they have the occasional tender moment. We got Max a Cars 2 Look and Find book, where you have to pick out objects in a sea of images. They've been sitting on his bed at night and examining it together, and he's doing just as well as she is spotting things. "Good job, Max!" she says.

At times like those, I feel melt-y. And then I'll hear her shouting out to him, as they fall asleep, "MAX! NO SPAGHETTI FOR YOU EVER AGAIN!"

How Sabrina describes her brother

We're at the playground. Max is turning a steering wheel on a jungle gym; Sabrina's standing nearby and talking with another little girl.

Carly: "Why doesn't Max talk?"

Sabrina: "He needs special needs."

It's a start! She'll get the wording right soon enough; I liked that she said it so matter-of-factly. I know that as she gets older, she'll get lots more questions about her big brother, and I hope that she'll answer them in the same friendly, straightforward way.