Suddenly Christopher has realized that Matthew is a real, full-fledged person who can...play.
They spent 15 minutes on the playground today, figuring out new ways to go down the slide. Matthew realized he could climb the steps and slide down headfirst without crashing in a disastrous end at the bottom...then take two steps back to the stairs, up again, down again, successfully.
Christopher was trying to go down in every dangerous way possible: laying down, headfirst, and even backward. All while shadowed by an over-anxious mother who does not like it when her offspring engage in any kind of experimentation, even on a four-foot high slide.
It was while contemplating this last stunt (the kids' equivalent of the redneck "hey, watch this!") that Christopher got blindsided by Matthew. Their rotation had been working out fine until Christopher stopped to ponder physics. Matthew caught up to him, and - again earning his "Little Bulldozer" nickname - just put his head down and forced his brother down the slide. They went down slowly, giggling the whole way. Then they went back up together, and down together the same way - Christopher going backwards, Matthew playing the part of the plow - about a million times, until someone got distracted and they ran their separate ways.
Of course, Christopher lost interest in Matthew as soon as friends his own age arrived at the playground, but it was still a nice preview of things hopefully to come.
