Madelyn and Princeton are now very aware of each other and it makes this mama’s heart smile with girl squeals as the soundtrack.

Princeton gets to know his sister minutes after we are reunited at home.

Whenever I’m carrying Madelyn, Princeton follows us around the house and hangs out in her room when we play. When she reaches for him, he doesn’t totally hate it. I mean, he kind of hates it, but that’s because he’s a scaredy dog and doesn’t do well with grabby hands from any kind of human — young or old. But at least he sort of tolerates it without any kind of retaliation.

Yesterday, I was watching both the furry child and fleshy child playing independently. Madelyn was exploring her room and picking up every object possible to inspect it and decide if it was mouth-worthy. She came across Princeton’s stuffed squeaky dog as he watched from a few inches away. She touched one end of the stuffed squeaky dog and Princeton took that as her intent to play. So he grabbed the other end with his teeth — gently! — and they had a mini tug-of-war with the toy. Princeton won. But that’s besides the point. It was so cute how Princeton assumed that her touching his toy meant that she wanted to have a game of fetch and Madelyn, well, damn, she just wanted to touch stuff.

Lately, I’ve noticed that Madelyn’s door goes from cracked to full on ajar during her naps. I think he’s going in there to check on her while she sleeps, which is totally warm-fuzzy until her usually-2 hour mid-day snoozes are cut in half because someone’s collar jingle-jangles too loudly. Uncool, Pdog.

However, all of Princeton’s approvals of Madelyn started before Madelyn even came home from the hospital.

I just came across this video that Bryan took when he went to our cousins’ house who were watching him while we were in the hospital when Madelyn was born. It was the first time Princeton had seen Bryan in three days and he had no idea what was in store for him when he’d return home.

Until this.

I think it was love at first sniff.