He Cries Differently

My daughter was upset about something or other this morning.   When she’s upset she’s loud.   If the phrase, “drama queen” gives you a mental image, go with that.   She’s not always like that but she is more often than not louder and more emphatic the more upset she is or the more attention she wants.

My son hates to be in trouble.   He gets mad, he gets rigid and he pushes and pushes to get his way—to have control of any facet within a situation.   But when we get more and more angry or insistent with him he gets upset.   He still pushes back, but he hates to be in trouble.   He’s afraid of being rejected or not loved.   Helping him understand that we’re not going to love him any less is something we need to work on.

Today we were at an Easter egg hunt at my in-laws club.   My son was being all kinds of disagreeable.  We were waiting for the “go” to run off in the field to collect the eggs and the guys had an idea to all line up against the backdrop of colorful eggs on the green grass for a photo.  Everyone lined up but my son.   Or rather he lined up but wouldn’t face forward.   Or look up.  Or smile.  

They gave up on the photo and then the hunt started.   I had been tough on my son as had multiple other people because we wanted only a moment of his time—to be remembered for years to come.    But he wouldn’t cooperate.    As the group of men broke up I saw my son look away and then wipe tears away from his eyes.   I didn’t even know he was crying.  

My son cries differently than my daughter.   I went over to him and picked my seven-year-old child and he put his head on my shoulder.   I rubbed his back and we talked about how hungry he was.   He felt better once he’d eaten.   I think he was glad he did the Easter egg hunt.   For a while before he was insisting he hated egg hunts.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has had some dry skin over the past several days.  We put on medicine and lotion but it wasn’t helping last night because his penis was now both itchy and stingy.   He complained to his father, “I have the worst penis ever.   Cut it off!”   This morning I asked him if he was glad to still have his penis now that hit felt better.   He said he was.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Yesterday as we were walking through the terminal on our way to our connecting gate a man told me, “she’s beautiful.   I have two at home but I’m off on a multi-month work commitment in the middle east and won’t get to see them for a while.   She reminds me of my children.”  My daughter was disheveled with hair everywhere but she was moving along with her cane at a nice pace, following the sound of my voice through the airport.   I told him thank you for the very nice compliment.    After he left I told my daughter he had said she was beautiful and wasn’t that nice.    She said, “I’d rather be different than beautiful.”