It is Spring Break, and the kids have been spending large chunks of each day playing games of their own invention together. They play a game that involves pulling all of the cushions off the sofa and then taking turns burying (and sometimes sitting on) each other. They play a game that consists of jumping off the furniture over one another. They play a game in which they chase each other around the house.

All of these games involve peril to one or more body parts, but I'm so thrilled that they are playing together that I try to overlook their less dangerous stunts. My son, now six, wasn't speaking at age two and received speech therapy through our state's Early Intervention program. When he started preschool at three, he was just starting to talk and was totally uninterested in other children. By age four was diagnosed with autism. These days the occasional head bonk is the price we pay for the gift of seeing him interested in and engaged with his sister.

Unfortunately, the games do end in tears with remarkable consistency. They always start off well, with lots of comments like "Yeah, let's do that" and "Ok, great idea" and "Good job!" Occasionally, that's as far as they get, because a three and a six year old aren't but so coordinated: like yesterday, when they were hitting a foam ball back and forth with little rackets and my daughter (who was standing about a foot away from her brother because neither one can hit a foam ball far) flailed for the ball and whacked him in the face instead.

But when they do make it uninjured though that honeymoon period of playing nicely together, the game goes bipolar: ending in mania or depression. Either it spins out of control into manic giggling and hysteria (which leads to someone taking something too far), or it drags on until someone gets desperately bored and leaves a weeping sibling behind, still wanting to play. My son will leave his sister devastated that her idol and best friend has abandoned her; my daughter will leave her brother frustrated that people are unpredictable and the world is, yet again, not working exactly the way the needs it to.

Yesterday, after what must have been a full 30 minutes of playing, I heard my daughter crying and was sure the game had gone on so long that it must have ended in its usual bipolar manner. As I was running to see what happened, my son rushed in to me and said, "Mama, you have to come quickly. Sister needs you. I accidentally bumped into her when we were playing. You have to see if she's ok!" They had been playing and having fun together, independently, for that full half hour. All the way through the game, and to its end, my son wasn't his sister's special needs brother, he was just her big brother: having fun with her, encouraging her, concerned about her when she got hurt and able to do what he needed to take care of her. And when things got beyond what he could handle alone, he asked for help, and Mama swept in and healed all with a magic kiss.