Pecked by Ducks

Captain Smarty Pants sent me an article the other day called “Mothers’ talk is key to kids’ social skills, study says” so of course I started worrying and wondering if we provide enough emotional cues for our boys. Then I remembered something.

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day. Captain Smarty Pants had an ultimate frisbee tournament on Saturday and Sunday (4 games each day) so I was coming up with things for us to do.

We decided to go to the library, Target, out to lunch and to REI to buy a tent, when Quinn said, “Mommy, I want to shaved my head.”
“You want to shave your head?”
“Yes.”
“Ummm…Ok…why?”
“I want to shaved my head.”
“All the way to skin or you want a buzz cut?”
“All the way to skin.”
“Well…how about we try a buzz cut and you see how you like it and if it not short enough then we can just shave more off.”
“Ok.”

So we went to Snip-its and asked the lady to give him a buzz cut.

This is how the first draft went, but it wasn’t enough.

When we were done with this he hopped down and said, with a big grin on his face, “Now I look like Michael.”

Wait for it…

Yep… Michael is the child in Quinn’s class who is going through chemo.

For a moment I couldn’t breath. Tears stung my eyes.

I am beyond amazed by the sweet, innocent empathy of my delicious child and I am tearing up again just thinking about it. I am not sure if he understands what Michael is going through or even the sweetness of the empathy in his little heart, but I’m so glad that instead of going with my initial impulse of “No…why?” I said “Okay…why?”

Side Note : Thanks Mom for for letting me pierce my nose and dye my hair blue and black and red and cut it A-line and wear combat boots to my high school graduation etc. all without blinking. I really appreciate your example of calm acceptance right now!

So anyway, I guess I have to now conclude that we aren’t doing too bad of a job encouraging our children’s emotional intelligence.

(Note: Names have been changed to protect those who may not want to be mentioned.)