@Tom, yes indeed. Eric’s nap time on weekends is prime-time for Nate. It’s a little harder during the week since I work and the boys are in daycare, but Nate gets his share of attention.
@Katie, Nate is a very, very smart kid. He understands a great deal and I have to be pretty careful what I say. When Eric went to the hospital, literally 24 hours after we’d had to put one of our horses to sleep due to a broken leg (worse, it was the baby of the herd, a six-month-old filly Nate had seen birthed), he asked me as soon as I got home from the hospital after 2 days’ absence whether the doctor was going to “put Eric to sleep so he could go to heaven.” I hastened to reassure him that unlike Sweet Melissa, Eric’s problem could be fixed, and there would be NO going to heaven for Eric, not for a long, long, long time. And that was when Nate was only 3 years old.