This Old Child

Jack has reached some major milestones with his style of play. He now makes appropriate sound-effects for all of his toys, and will sit, engrossed in some state of dramatic make-believe, and play for 30-minutes at a time. THIRTY MINUTES. He is also very bossy about the imaginary situations he develops and will explain, to great length, why things are happening, and why you are doing it completely wrong.

He has also developed quite a capacity for bargaining, bartering and charming his way into and out of many situations. I try to see this as evidence of how smart he is, and how quickly he is becoming life-savvy.

He charmed us into taking him to McDonalds this weekend, and after eating, quickly ran to the play area. Unfortunately that day the play area was overrun with kids who were probably way too old and large to be playing there, and they wouldn't let Jack up to the upper-level of the hamster-maze tube farm. He was understandably upset, and we left quickly, explaining to him that some kids are just NOT nice. It was so sad to see his reaction--he could not fathom why someone would be mean to a stranger. He explained to us, through his tears, that when he meets a stranger he says, "hi!" and tries to play with them. "Why those kids not say 'hi!' to me? Why those kids not let me play?" I had no answer for him (at least not one that he would understand, or that didn't contain some choice words about those childrens' parents). I know that these are situations that are a part of growing up, a part of learning from the actions of others about what kind of person you don't want to be, but it was very bittersweet to see him losing a piece of his innocence. I am glad that I was there to provide support and guidance, and to wipe away his tears, but it saddened me nonetheless. C'est la vie: jerks included.