Tears

The first words out of King Ben’s mouth this morning when I woke him up were “play outside?”. Those are usually the first words every morning. That’s his way of asking if he has school or not. We have the visuals. We talk about it. I guess he just wakes up blank and wants to be told.

Since today is a school day I told him he could play outside after school. This is not what he wanted to hear. I tried to talk about other things for a while, give him a chance to get into school mode. He wasn’t having it. He fought me every step of the way getting him dressed and ready. It’s difficult trying to dress a wriggling, kicking, 85lb little Mr Man. Somehow I got him dressed, ready and on the bus.

Then I came in the house and cried. I didn’t cry because it was difficult to get him ready. I didn’t cry because he kicked me and hit me. I cried because the whole time I was getting him ready he was crying. Tears. This child doesn’t cry. He yells, he screams, he occasionally whines, he laughs, he sings, he makes “happy noises” but tears are very, very rare. This morning there were tears.

He was probably just tired from being up from 2am-4am. He’s probably having a little trouble with the expectations of school after a three week break. He probably just wanted to stay in his nice warm bed. But he’s not able to tell me. I try to ask yes or no questions to find the reason for the tears but I’m not able to ask the right questions to find the problem.

I cried because the world was so difficult for my little guy this morning that it made him cry. And I not only couldn’t fix it, I don’t even know why.