Gavin has been having serious mental and physical health problems for almost his entire life. As far as Elliott and Emmett are concerned, they’ve never known any different. To them, Gavin has always been like this and they never knew him before he began to change.

Something that we have probably not done enough of, is sitting the two youngest down and explaining to them what Gavin is going through. There are times that they tease Gavin because they don’t realize that Gavin has zero control over his inability to do or not do certain things.

As an example, Gavin can’t tell the difference between two of our ferrets. Tiny and Lemme do look very much alike but their faces are different. The rest of us can see the difference immediately.

Gavin was unable to tell the difference between the two again this moring and Elliott began teasing him about it. It’s all good natured, typical brother stuff but I pulled him aside before he went any further.

I had to try and explain things in a way that he would understand and be able to appreciate.

I told Elliott that Gavin’s brain is getting worse and he can’t figure things out the way he used to. I explained that he probably cannot see a difference between Lemme and Tiny.

Once I explained this, Elliott immediately stopped. He looked me straight in they eyes and simply said, okay. Will this be the last time I need to say something to him? Probably not. At the same time however, in this moment, Elliott understands what’s going on and stopped teasing Gavin.

I was flying by the seat of my pants in that one but I handled it the best I could in the moment.