Sappy Mom

I've never been one of those cry with my children moms. When Claudia was younger she would get all sad and teary. When asked why it was always something about her Teddy, either how she could lose him in a fire, or would miss him in heaven, etc. She would get so sad about the littlest things, like losing a balloon. I usually just get annoyed by it. Don't get me wrong, I would sympathize with her, tell her that she has her Teddy and should enjoy him now, she has had numerous balloons and it is always sad when that happens, but she would have many balloons in her life, blah blah blah. But it really annoys me.

I'm no tiger mom, but I generally don't break down and cry when Claudia is sad about something.

Until Duncan came along. Claudia has this whiny sad puppy dog look, it just feels too fake to me. Too much like she is acting the role. Duncan however, he has this sob. And I don't mean a cry, but truly a heart-wrenching sob that just makes me want to cry too. And try to fix whatever went wrong. Sometimes I'm annoyed by it, like last week on vacation a ball he won in the arcade broke. I was annoyed and yet I still felt the urge to go down and get him another (I didn't).

But earlier this week, after we returned home from vacation, Duncan began his sob shortly after we put him down for bed. So I knew I was going to be dealing with a broken or lost toy. So I go down and ask him what is wrong. He was sitting up in bed and just sobbing, so hard I could hardly make out the answer.

Duncan: sob, I'm going sob to miss my sob toys.
Me: miss your toys? Why?
Duncan: sob I'm going to sob sob miss my toys sob sob when we move.
Me (thoroughly confused now): Duncan, we aren't moving. And even if we did we would take your toys with us.
Duncan: sob No! When I move! Sob
Me: when you move? When are you moving?
Duncan: sob when I leave this house sob sob. When I'm grown up! Sob sob

Geez. It's always hard when the kids reach that realization that they will grow up one day, or die, or that mom or dad will die, etc. I just hadn't heard it expressed quite like that before. Don't worry I properly comforted him. How that would be years in the future, how he could probably save his most favorite toys etc. He then made sure to tell me that he wanted to save his two webkinz hamsters, cookie and lovey. I reassured him that he could and by the time I left his room he was happily playing with those hamsters, and sniffling just a little.

Sniffle,

Cindy