“You can tell me anything at all, Austin, and I promise I won’t get angry,” I reassured him, holding his small hand in mine.

“I don’t always like having the twins around the house,” he confessed, ducking his head in deep shame.

“Why’s that, honey?” I asked gently.

“Because they scream all the time, and they smell weird, and everybody keeps telling me I have to be a perfect big brother every second of the day,” he admitted in a rush.

“Yesterday afternoon when Mason woke me up from my nap screaming, I got so mad inside my head that I wished the doctor had never let them come home.”

He looked at me with pure terror in his eyes, plainly expecting me to scold him or agree that he really was a horrible, ungrateful boy.