I have another brother

I was flipping through papers in Dinosaur's backpack and I found a piece of writing by him about his house, saying great 7-year-old things like that our house is SO old, but still okay.  But I stopped when I read:

"I have another brother named (Crocodile's name)."

Sometimes when Dinosaur talks about his foster siblings, he says foster first.  Mostly he uses their names.  This is the first time I remember him just using brother.

And though he hasn't been here since birth and we don't know how long he'll stay, in so many ways, they are just brothers.  They take each others' stuff.  They give each other things to make each other smile.  Crocodile imitates Dinosaur and Dinosaur is annoyed.

Though I do know there is an initial shock and adjustment phase.  And I believe there is something about suddenly having a toddler in your family.  Let's face it: toddlers are irrational, crazy little people.  I think the gradual transformation from "cute baby sibling" to "crazy toddler sibling" may be easier on siblings.

It was nice to read without any qualifiers, like I often feel they are my children without any qualifiers.  I don't mean in the sense that they belong to me, but sometimes they are just my daughters, just my sons, in the way I feel in our family.