Max is in a super sensitive and emotional state right now. Liam has always been a very empathetic and compassionate kid, to the point where he cried with Penny in The Rescuers. Max on the other hand has proved to be a rough and tumble kid, unafraid to launch himself from the highest height and apparently unaware that he is not a 9 year old boy. Despite the 20 month old "jock" persona, he is turning into quite the sweet little boy. He gets very upset if he sees his brother crying, and is quick to give hugs and kisses to help people feel better.
He is also very intuitive and picks up on things suprisingly quickly. We have a book called "No, No, Yes, Yes" in which pictures of "bad" things are labeled "no, no" and "good" things are labeled "yes, yes." One page shows a baby hitting another baby with a toy hammer, "no, no". The facing page shows the baby playing nicely with the hammer and the other baby, "yes, yes." We have read this book without incident for months. Now, all of a sudden Max is horrified by it. He starts to scream and cry that the baby is getting hurt whenever we get to that page. We have had to hide the book because, like a car wreck, he can't NOT look at it! It's so sweet that he understands that the baby will be hurt if someone hits him, but it's also so strange that he is reacting this way so suddenly!
We've realized that some changes in his behavior seem to have happened right around the time of my grandpa's funeral. We prepped Liam on what to expect at a funeral for months, just so he wouldn't be confused, and he did wonderfully well through it all. I never thought that Max would even realize what was going on because he is still so little. He was happy for most of that day, and never really acted out in any way to make us feel like he might be having a hard time with things. Then we went back to my parents' house and he freaked out any time anyone would be napping or lying down with their eyes closed! He obviously put together that grandpa lying down with his eyes closed made people sad and he's really upset by that! I'm so sad for him, but also amazed at his reaction. That day was probably also difficult for him because so many people he knows and loves were sad and crying and he didn't know why. His reaction has been the same to a book with a turtle with its eyes closed and one with two kids going to sleep in their beds.
Max also remembers that grandpa is usually with Grandma Arlene when we see her, so he has actually been asking for him when he hears her name. It's adorable, and heartbreaking. It's so hard to explain anything in a way that he could understand, so we just tell him that grandpa went to heaven and hope he'll be ok with that.
Such a sweetpea...and of course now I'm fretting that I've scarred him for life.
I'm sure you haven't scarred him for life. It's pretty crazy that he was able to pick up on some of what's going on even at such a young age though.
ReplyDeleteOn a less serious note, your story about the book reminded me of one of our nephews. Thomas is *obsessed* with trucks, and he got the Richard Scarry cars and trucks book for Christmas--he thinks it's pretty much the best thing EVER. But as we were flipping through it, there's one page where there's a giant car crash. Thomas just kept staring at the page saying "big truck uh-oh" over and over; it took several minutes before we were able to convince him to turn the page and see that all was well again on the next page!