A not-sad goodbye

Sabrina's doing a stint at an overnight camp, and I've wondered if Max would miss her. I know how much I'm going to, so I sat down to write a little card for her to tuck in her backpack and open when she arrived. Max walked over and asked to use the pen. He wrote:

"Fireman Max"

One thing I'm loving about the firefighter phase is that he's now writing a longer name; "Max" is a measly three letters but "Fireman Max" gets him to write seven more. I thought it was very sweet that he was signing my note to Sabrina. 

"That's so nice, Fireman Max!" I gushed. 

Then he asked me to write:

"Max wants to be a fireman when he grows up."

Hmmm, interesting, I thought. Perhaps he's concerned that she is going to forget his job aspirations while she is away, and he wanted to make sure she remembered. Or perhaps he wanted her to show the note to her new friends, given how impressive it is to have a wannabe firefighter as a brother.

"Fireman Max, I love that you're giving Sabrina a card!" I said.

Max looked at me curiously. "No!" he said. "Mine!"

He grabbed the card and trotted off to his room.

He put the card on top of his firefighter book collection, next to his firefighter suit and hat

And that was that. I picked up another card and wrote Sabrina a note that was only slightly more filled with feeling. 

"Max, are you going to miss me?" Sabrina asked a little later, when the two of them were in her room.

"Ee-yah!" ["Yeah!"] he said, a little too enthusiastically.

I know exactly what he's thinking: MINE! MY PARENTS ARE GOING TO BE ALL MINE!

So amused by how typical the sibling rivalry is in this family.