My pair

It's not the best photo, just a random one Jim snapped of the kids. But he took it, and I love it, because they are sitting on the couch together, holding hands. Until, they spotted Jim with the camera, they were happily sitting like that and looking at Ben's Pokemon cards.

Okay, I don't fully understand what or who a Pokemon is, and I'm not sure my 9-year-old really needs to be quizzing my 3-year-old on the various monsters (are they monsters?) powers.

Still watching my pair together gives me a jolt of joy like almost nothing else. They do not share a blond line, a skin color, a hair type, a gender or an even reasonably close birth date. But their brother-sister bond is as tight as they come.

Kisae wants to do everything with "My brudder Ben." And Ben frequently says she is his favorite person in the world.

Not that they don't have their spats, their "you can't come in my room for a month!" and "no look at me!" moments. They do. But they are short-lived.

Today, as were were picking Ben up from school, we saw one of his teachers. She stopped to chat, mentioned how cute Kisae was and then said, "Oh, I wish I had a Kisae."

Ben put his arm around his sister and smiled. "Too bad. She's mine."