We're very lucky.
Jack is the sort of child
we all assume we'll have
when we decide to have children,
and the sort of child
less experienced parents
congratulate themselves for.January and February 2004
March and April 2004
May and June 2004
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Blogs we read:
Wednesday, Jun. 22, 2005 - (Mamma)
He's not sick after all
Well, I got home last night to find that Jack had finally fallen asleep.
When he woke up, it was clear that he wasn't ill at all. That's when I heard "the rest of the story".
It seems that it all started when Rod was showering. jack was in the bathroom playing witht he door -- pushing it shut, only to watch it open again.
The reason it was opening again is that Grace (our four year old cat) was on the other side of the doo playing, too, but Jack didn't realize that.
Well, it seems that at one point, Grace was reaching around the door, as cats are wont to do to closed doors. Jack didn't realize it, and when the door did't close, he pushed it. Hard.
Grace howled, of course, what with her paw stuck between the door and the jamb, with a small boy pushing it tighter, and all.
The caterwauling upset jack - -it really was a scary noise. He turned to Rod and said "Grace angry" with a very concerend look on his face.
Rod, who had come out of the shower just intime to observe this, but too late to intervene, explained to jack what had happened. He then said that that sound was Grace crying because her "fingers" were hurt.
Jack was devastated! He adores Grace and would never hurt her!
It was shortly after that that he wanted to be in Rod's arms, and lay there listelessly enough to convince Rod that he wasn't well. He didn't even respond when Grace came back, climbed on Rod's lap, and licked him -- usually an invitation to play.
Rod didn't immediately make the connection because 'just barely two' seems so young for that level of empathy, but when Jack woke up, he was bright, cheerful, and energetic. No sign of illness. Only then did Rod realize what must have gone wrong.
Grace is fine, now, and so is Jack. But we're going to have to be careful how we handle Jack. He may not need the reinforcement that some of our other kids to learn empathy, and we sure don't want to bury him in guilt that he doesn't deserve. Acidents happen.
