Clara and Cutler have the sweetest friendship.
These inseparable toddler BFFs always have each other's back.
Clara and Cutler, who both have Down syndrome, attend physical, occupational and speech therapy sessions together twice a week, but they also enjoy playing tag, watching movies and getting into all kinds of mischief together.
"Everybody is blown away by their friendship," Cutler’s mom, Amy Sanders, told SWNS. "Everybody is smitten with them."
Sanders, 43, explained that she and a childhood friend Lana Beaton, 39, reconnected when Beaton was pregnant with Clara and discovered she would be born with Down syndrome.
"I thought by connecting with Amy, we might be a good support for one another," Beaton said. “I sent her a sensitive message asking if Cutler had an extra chromosome like Clara and Amy wrote back within an hour.”
Clara was also born with other health problems, and needed open heart surgery at just 3 months old and is now fed through a G-tube in her stomach. She also has Hirschsprung disease, a condition affecting the nerves in her colon.
Not only did Sanders and Beaton find support in each other, but the connection between Clara and Cutler were obvious from their first fateful meeting.
"We laid the babies out on a blanket and they started touching each other," Beaton explained. “You could see that there was a connection there between them.”
Sanders said Clara, who is more extroverted, is a great influence on her quiet and shy son.
"Clara is very outgoing and she will tell you what’s what," she explained. "Cutler is shy and reserved. He admires people from afar but he’s definitely more cautious than Clara."
When Clara is hospitalized for her various conditions, Beaton said she misses her friend and often watches videos of Cutler from her hospital bed.
"Clara is a medically fragile child so we’re always in and out of the hospital,” her mom explained. "But they stay in touch with videos,which is great."
The two moms, who have created a blog named Clara & Cutler to document their kids' relationship, said they hope the two tots will find support in each other as they grow up.
"Cutler has an amazing ally in Clara," Sanders said. "They make my heart happy."
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