And really, seeing the kid sad is pretty awful. I'm sure all parents feel that way about their kids, and I'm sure Alex's tears are not unique in their ability to make anyone who sees them feel like they did when the hunter shot Bambi's mother.
I debated ways to phrase the bad news, ranging from "Finny is no longer with us" to "Have you ever heard of fish heaven?" to "So, about that fish of yours..."
But "Finny's dead" popped out, Band-Aid ripped off, and it was like that time that I actually DID rip Alex's Band-Aid off and realized that that bit of advice is not to be universally employed. Like, for example, when the Band-Aid-covered wound is on the child's FACE and you have ten minutes before you have to take him to meet his kindergarten teacher with an angry red splotch on his cheek that looks suspiciously like a slap mark. Nice.
His grief over Finny was brief but intense, both of which seem to be defining characteristics of childhood emotions both good and bad.
Luckily for all concerned, we left for a long weekend with the Texas family the next day, leaving behind an empty aquarium filled with weeks' worth of fond memories of Finny the Fish (the Second, but you didn't hear that from me). For a while there was a shrine in the spot where the tank used to be, a water glass filled with water and a seashell, a note that was heartbreaking in its earnestness, and a spotlight fashioned from the aquarium lid.
Now that Alex's heart seems to have healed (a couple of weeks seems sufficient mourning time for a pet you've only had for a minute), he's on to bigger and better things. New DS games, for instance, and counting backwards by tens from 200, and jumping up three reading levels since the beginning of first grade. Life is in constant flux when you're six.
Katherine has suddenly grown dimples because, apparently, her face didn't think it was irresistible enough without them. Were I one to be swayed by cuteness, we might have a problem in the coming years. Steven is one to be swayed by cuteness, so we'll see how that shakes out.
We're fully ensnared in Mother's Day Out two days a week now, and the drop-offs are as not-fun as I remember them from Alex's child-care days, and the pick-ups are generally filled with trepidation; the main teacher makes vague accusations like "She had her moments" and "When the mood of the room changes, she gets upset." And I try not to take it personally because these are not judgments on Katherine's 15-month-old character nor mine as her mother. I ask, after all, invariably, "How did she do today?" I guess I should inform her that the only answer I'm really interested in, whether true or false, is "Great!"
I've always been a proponent of the ignorance-is-bliss approach to life. I guess I could just quit asking.
I'm ready for her to start talking more now, and not because I'm paranoid. I know that she will start talking and that one day, if she's anything like her brother, we'll wonder that we ever wanted to rush it. But I do think it would cut back on some of her frustration. She knows what she wants unfailingly, at all times. And she wants you to know that she knows what she wants. And she wants you to give it to her. Yesterday. "More, more, more," she signs incessantly, increasingly frustrated as you play the destined-for-failure guessing game. "More what? More milk? More goldfish? More Fresh Beat Band? More ... patience?"
When you stumble upon the correct more, she rewards you with one of the newly dimpled grins, and you've earned a gold star for cracking the code.
The whole tiring scene, replayed fifty-some-odd times a day, makes me think fondly and perhaps a little revisionistically on Alex's baby days, when he said things like "Mother, a cookie would really hit the spot" and "I would like for you to pick me up now." OK, no, but certainly "Cookie, peez!" and "Up, peez, Mama!"
Katherine just likes to make us work for it a little harder. She is honing her feminine powers.
In the meantime, I just need to improve my guessing skills.
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