David’s Best Friend

On days like this when Silje is off at school, I was worried that David would have no one to play with. Elias is somewhat entertaining to him, but can’t do as much as he would like. I never would have imagined that David would have found so much entertainment with Lena.

Lena is different for each of us in the family. She obeys Knut and I pretty well. She loves playing outside when Knut is working, and she loves just following me around the house when I do chores. With Silje, she loves to snuggle. Silje loves snuggling, and has taught Lena some “snuggling tricks” that Silje gets a big kick out of.

With Elias, well according to Lena, Elias is the world. Now that he is crawling, he’s into everything, including dog food and bones. He was headed toward one of Lena’s rawhide bones a few days ago, and Knut kicked it away toward Lena, and away from Elias. Lena promptly picked up the bone, brought it over to Elias, and dropped it in front of him. Lena will not stand for Elias crying, and will bring him whatever he is reaching for.

But Lena and David haven’t always gotten along. David was so active, that he would run by her with his arms flailing. She would jump on him, try to roughhouse with him. We told them to stay away from each other. But now that Silje is at school, David plays with Lena for a good portion of the morning. He loves to “take Lena for a run.” He gets on one of the kids’ bikes that we have around, and rides circles around the driveway “racing” with Lena.

The two of them have quite the system, where he says go, and she runs alongside him. She doesn’t jump or roughhouse with him anymore. David used to be scared of Lena, but now he takes control, and tells Lena what to do, and even better–she listens. She jumps when he says “C’mon Lena, time for a run!” If David stops his bike, she waits until he says it’s time to go again. They’re just doing circles and circles for up to 2 hours at a time.

C’mon Lena!

She’s barely got the breath to walk. (Yes, he is riding a pink bike. Anyone have a problem with that?)

“I’ll just sit this one out, kid” says Lena. I need a break! It is very common for David to run her to the point where she just sits down and won’t run anymore.