Mom and Dad are finally home from the hospital. Cooper’s been staying with Mrs. Francis next door for the past few days, because he’s not allowed to go to the hospital to see Blaine yet.

Blaine. His baby brother has a name now. He has a baby brother, not an icky sister. Cooper has decided that girls are gross, especially Allie Davis in his homeroom class with her stupid pigtails and her stupid Barbie dolls. Guys are cooler, and now Cooper has a little brother. Which is cool.

“I wanna see, I wanna see!!” Cooper says, jumping up and down as his dad helps his mom sit down on the couch. She’s carrying this funny plastic basket thing and Cooper’s been trying to look in it, but all he sees is a pile of blankets, and that’s not all that exciting. Where is Blaine? Did they leave him at the hospital?

“Cooper,” his father says sternly, shooting him a look that tells him he is “behaving inappropriately.” Cooper hates when his dad does that… it’s like his dad is saying he’s angry at him, but he’s not actually saying anything at all. It’s a pretty awful feeling, so Cooper sighs and stands patiently beside the couch. His mom suddenly has all of his attention as she reaches into that funny basket and picks up that pile of blankets.

Oh. It’s not a pile of blankets at all, Cooper realizes. It’s a pile of blankets in the shape of his favorite dumplings, and there’s something moving inside of it. Mom’s moving it around, arranging it long-ways in her arms and- it just made a noise.

“Cooper, would you like to meet your new little brother?” she asks with a smile. She looks at the couch cushion beside her expectingly, and Cooper hops up quickly and peers over her shoulder. And-

there is a tiny person inside the blanket-dumpling.

“Cooper, this is Blaine,” she whispers, turning the blanket-dumpling at an angle so that Cooper can see better. “This is your baby brother.”

Cooper looks at him for a little while, and after a while, he furrows his brow. Blaine isn’t all that interesting. Every now and then he gives a little wriggle, but mostly, he just… lays there.

“Mama?” Cooper whispers. “I think our baby is broken.”

“Whatever do you mean, sweetheart?” his mom asks puzzledly.

“He’s not doing anything. Maybe you need to take him back to the hospital so they can fix him.”

Cooper hears his dad chuckling in his recliner, and his mom is just smiling at him, so he’s a little upset. Something is clearly wrong with Blaine, and can’t they see that he’s worried?

“Cooper, honey, he’s a baby,” his mother says calmly. “Babies don’t do a lot at first. But eventually, he’ll start to do more as he grows.”

Oh. Well. That’s lame, Cooper thinks.

“Would you like to hold him?” she asks, and Cooper’s eyes get as big as saucers.

“Cristina, I don’t think-“

“William, he’ll be fine.” Mom is rolling her eyes at Dad as she shifts toward Cooper. “Hold your arms like this,” she tells him. Cooper imitates his mother’s posture, staring intently at the little dumpling in her arms. “Now make sure you hold his head up; you can’t drop it.”

And then Cooper’s holding his baby brother. He’s a little heavier than Cooper expected; all of those blankets are kind of deceiving. But he’s warm and soft, and he smells like Mom’s perfume and baby powder. His face is tiny and pink and there’s a little tuft of dark hair peeking out from under his hat. Cooper thinks this may be the coolest thing he’s ever seen-

And then Blaine opens his eyes. He doesn’t make any noise and he really doesn’t move that much. But he looks up at Cooper and Cooper sees that he has their mom’s dark eyes, and he’s looking at Cooper like he knows him, like he can read his mind and see right through him and that’s when Cooperknows that this is the coolest thing ever. And then Blaine opens his tiny pink mouth and-

He burps.

“COOL!” Cooper exclaims, grinning as Blaine burrows back into the blankets. “Mom, did you see that? Mom, he burped! I made him burp! My baby brother burps!”

His mom is laughing at him and shaking her head, which would normally upset him but he just made his baby brother burp and that is like, the coolest thing ever.

He’s going to be the greatest big brother in the world, he decides, because he has the greatest little brother ever. End of story.