The Sorrow of the Four Year Old

There is nothing so cute and so sad as a grieving four year old. I just love him.

Example One: The Lost Treasure

On Easter Sunday, Sprout and I were sitting in a very crowded church on a small ledge at the side that also contains a grill for air vents. He scribbled many, many little pictures in his little tiny notebook, and then - zip - suddenly the notebook went through the grill and down the air vent. And there it was, out of our reach, so many feet below.

Oh the sorrow.

He cried quietly on me in despair for a whole half-hour. I'm sure no one around us knew what it was about at all. We had oodles of conversations like, "I'm so sad dat my notebook is down dat vent, Mommy. You know where I got dat? [sob]" "You got it at H's birthday party, didn't you? It was special to you, wasn't it." "Yeah!!! [boo hoo!!!]"

When the church service was over, and all the other people had left the air grill ledge seats with us, we pried up the grill and tried to get it. It was at least five feet down. Once Sprout saw that it was a lost cause, and I knew it was a lost cause, I suggested that we could probably get another notebook for his drawings. And so we did, and once he had the new one, he was totally cool with it.

On the way from the church to the car, though, I said, "You were pretty sad in there," and Sprout answered, "Yes, I was sad, and then I started to feel better, and then I was sad again - I don't know how that happened!"


Example Two: No More Mook

Today, Sprout was grieving over my lack of 'mook' or breastmilk. The conversation:

Sprout: "Mommy, I want mook."

Me: "But there is no mook. It's all gone. You're so big that it's all gone."

Sprout: [his little face crumpling in sadness] "But I want mook."

Me: "Do you want to try it?" He does, and finding no success, says:

Sprout: "Dere's only one dwop."

Me: "What should we do? Should we go to the gas station and fill it up?"

Sprout: [smiling] "We can't get mook at the gas station."

Me: "Oh, where does it come from?"

Sprout: "When you have a baby or a four-year-old - no, a free-year-old - you have mook."

Me: "Oh, and when your son gets to be four, there's no more mook?"

Sprout: "Yeah."

And then he was fine. We decided to go off and do something fun.