All Heart

It's funny how you get to know your kids as they grow. I can tell you every nuance about the Monkey's moods...the good and the bad...a frustrated cry from a whiny cry from a fake cry from a tired cry. I don't always know the origin of his mood, but I can pretty much tell where he is on the spectrum when he's upset.

The worst is the sad cry...the genuinely sad cry. It's different from the others. It starts with that little face turned completely upside down with the effort of trying to deal with an emotion far too large for a 5-year-old heart...and then the giant teardrops...followed, generally, by the sweetest statement of utter and complete sadness. It's the stuff that breaks a mother's heart.

It happened a couple of months ago when he was imagining what his life would be like if I died. And then again the night I made good on my promise to "throw away his toys" (I put them in a bag in the trash. After bath, he asked if he could say goodbye to them one last time so that they'd know that he loved them. His little eulogy over the trash can was completely tragic and entirely sincere. I rescued the toys, but he doesn't know it.).

He must have had a rough go of it today, because the tears were coming for everything tonight. The topic that stuck, though, was his thoughts about going to a new school. He didn't want to leave his current school and was crushed at the idea of leaving his daycare provider. We spent some time together on the "After-Winter School" (his term) website and by the time we'd clicked around, he was thrilled to be going! He couldn't wait to be a Purple Hippo and then an Orange Tiger! He asked if the school site could be his homepage...and made me IM MrR and Spiggy that he was going to check his after-winter school program every morning before he woke me up.

But then on the way to stories he spied the page from his Daycare Graduation. It's a "good luck" note from his old school to wish him well in Kindergarten, and it happened to be on the floor of his room. And there was the face...all upside down and miserable. He asked if he could say goodbye to his old school...and I said yes. He went back over and crouched down in front of the paper, spilling tears on the ink. He carefully touched the picture of his old class and said "Goodbye...I miss you..." Then fell into my arms and sobbed for...ages, it seemed.

Then we read Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout and he felt much better before the lights went out.

This kid is all heart and imagination....and destined to be a Myers-Briggs "F."

...just like his mother.