Brotherly Love

Thing Two regularly annoys the holy and living hell out of Thing One.  Sometimes deliberately, but much more often inadvertently: his social issues and difficulty with respecting the personal space of others can be difficult to deal with.  Thing One does a decent job of hanging in there, all things considered (as the big sister of a little brother who was highly annoying himself way back when, I sympathize!), but often he just wants Thing Two to leave him alone.   We keep trying to explain to him that his little brother adores him and wants his attention, but he doesn't always buy that.

Thing Two brings home a folder in his backpack every day, which contains all the work he did in class that day.  I check it after school as part of the routine.  Yesterday, as a pre-St. Patrick's Day writing assignment, he was apparently asked to answer the question "Who is worth more to me than gold?"

The answer, of all the possible things he could have written?  "My brother is worth more to me than gold.  I like to hug him a lot.  I play games with him."

I immediately called Thing One over.  He mumbled something under his breath when he read his brother's words, but I noticed that he took the paper with him when he left the room shortly afterward.

Later, on a hunch, I looked in Thing One's box of treasures, a small wooden chest that he keeps under his bed.  Guess what was in it?