monday morning ayrie, shiya and I went to the pediatrician’s office to have them listen to ayrie’s breathing. his breathing sounded labored early Monday morning and was quickly deteriorating. the pediatrician sent us down to the emergency room where the staff gave ayrie nebulizer treatments. i was holding ayrie in one arm as he sobbed in fear and tried to rip off the mask. i held shiya in the other arm as he sobbed because it was all just too strange. luckily garrett came in and took shiya away because there was no way i could meet both of their needs. but by wednesday night we were still in the hospital and we hadn’t seen shiya since monday morning.

I was really, really, really missing shiya. he’s so sweet, soft, squishy and grounding. i needed some shiya love. and ayrie was really missing his brother, asking what he was doing, who he was with and when we would see him again. in fact, whenever ayrie was scared we would talk about all of the funny words that shiya says like di-poo (diaper) and bah-bow (bottle). We were talking like Shiya and laughing right up to the minute that we walked into the operating room.

emily and ian (who came home early from a vacation) picked shiya up almost immediately after arriving home from the airport and got to the hospital just in time for a quick visit before visiting hours ended. Shiya repeated Ayrie’s name over and over on the way to the hospital. and it’s funny, because they didn’t interact much in the room. shiya tried to climb on top of the elmo balloon and eat all of ayrie’s hospital food. ayrie wanted to talk like shiya, telly jokes and listen to ian’s stories. but when it was time to leave, they both cried for the other one.

i love that they love each other so much! i hope that they’ll look back at this when they are teenagers and remember how much they have always been such a big part of each others’ lives.