Brotherly love

I came across this photo today. It made me ponder the strange thing that is an (almost) eight year old boy's love for his sister.

These are my kids. They are having loads of fun playing outside in the snow. At this point it was raining on them and they were still out there having a ball.

They are having a ball but this photo is deceiving. At first glance it looks as if Sonny Boy is actually hugging his sister, but be sure of one thing, Sonny Boy has never voluntarily hugged his sister in his life. He is actually tackling her and trying to shove her face in the snow, however, in Sonny Boy's book tackling and hugging are roughly equivalent acts of affection. 

He loves his sister. He will never say it out loud and he will never hug her, but he loves her. He shows her by wresting with her, building forts with her, playing in snow with her, pile-driving her, farting/burping on her, and being a general nuisance to her (in that they are equals. They each pester the other incessantly). 

His way of showing affection for her drives me batty sometimes, but I just need to remind myself that he is just saying that he loves her in his own weird way. If he didn't love her, he'd simply ignore her. So even though he'd just as soon drop kick her as he would give her a hug, he'd do it in love.