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My eternal gratitude to the men and women who have served and are serving our country in the armed forces - not a day goes by that I don't think how lucky I am to live here, but today I'm saying it out loud. Your sacrifices and the sacrifices of your families are appreciated by all. Thank you, and please stay safe.
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What a difference a day makes.
Yesterday I was up before 4:00, today I got to sleep until close to 10:00. And when I woke up, I got to lay there in that "I'm awake, but only marginally functional and in no hurry to get up" state that parents never enjoy.
Saturday evening, Bean asked to invite friends over for an arts-and-crafts playdate the next day. I cautioned her that everyone probably had plans, but fortunately Shirley and Cindy were able to bring their girls over and Bean hosted her first playdate since mommy returned to work. The girls glued collages together (Miss O included), and then donned princess dresses to run around like crazy people. O tried to keep up with the big girls, and since they all have younger siblings, they were all pretty good about including her and not being *too* rough with her.
After Miss O's 3:51 wake-up, it took until around 1:00 to get her a nap, and that was 30 minutes, up for 15, asleep for another 45. Thankfully, Dave was picking them up about an hour after her final wake-up. I'm tellin' ya - I have infinite patience for wake-up through bedtime hijinks, but the sleeping stuff annoys the hell out of me.
Getting up this late is confusing. I never sleep past 7:00, so it feels like it should be 8 or 9, latest. It's after 11.
We continued the Journey of the Macabre yesterday, with Bean requesting to stop and look at a dead deer that the vultures were finishing off. I got out and looked first, but it was pretty much bone and hair. And stink. But she wanted to see it anyways, so I scooped her out of her car seat and held her in my arms as we surveyed the carcass. I can only imagine what the folks driving past must have thought - some little soccer mom holding her daughter as they looked at a dead deer. I'm sure more than a few thought I was a freakin' loon ..
So what do y'all think. Am I too open with her about this stuff? Kids, people and animals die - it happens and there's no stopping it. I don't see the point of shrinking from it all or describing it all in fluffy kitten language; but am I missing something? Why is it okay for a 4 year old to hear "Jesus died for our sins", but not know that people die? To me, someone being killed because my kid is inherently bad seems far ookier than her knowing that some babies are born too sick to live, but maybe that's just my prejudice against religion showing again ...
Have your kids brought up death like Bean has? How do you handle it? I don't think I'd be here if the PT at her therapy place hadn't died and opened the door to this line of questioning, but because she's so damn inquisitive, once we start down a path, there's no detour. I could have tried to route us down a flower-filled path, I guess, but I'm such a WYSIWYG kind of person - you ask, I'll tell you. It's impossible for me to imagine not being equally open and honest with my own kid ...
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3 comments:
C asks me how people die, not all the time, but it comes up in conversation. I try to explain to her in terms of cardiovascular and nervous system function failing, and for the most part, that satisfies her. She's not as thrilled with the answers of what happens after you die because I tell her what I think and what other people think, and it bothers her the discrepancy of how two things which are opposites can be true at the same time. She's too young for religious indoctrination IMHO so for now I just tell her that people believe what they like to that makes them feel better instead of being sad about death. We leave it at that. The cemetery, I would probably not do with C just because I don't want that to open up a whole can of worms on the topic of death, but the vulture eaten remains, probably we would examine that.
Bean is not a cookie cutter little girl...she is bright, and as you said she is very inquisitive and has a need to know. The fact that she asks the questions, means she deserves an honest and open answer.
I believe that if they ask we need to be relatively open and honest with kids. Giving them correct information in a kid friendly will only foster an open honest relationship with your kid when they're older. Why on earth would they trust us later if they believe we've kept things from them? Bean does make it all interesting though! By the way, I've been reading your blog for a while and am enjoying your writing and perspective on being a mom. And the non-sleeping/napping toddler thing... I'm right there with you. Sigh. Someday, they'll sleep... I hope.
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