More Bobbin vignettes
All night, and every day
It was a beautiful day today. Blue skies, sunny, high 70's. I had picked up Bobbin from school a bit early and we were sittin' in the car with all the windows down so Bobbin can enjoy the sun and light breeze. It was rush hour, so we were in gridlock. A car next to us with a couple of teenagers in the front seat had their car stereo blaring. Bobbin asked me "Mommy, what's that kind of music?" "Umm... that's rock and roll, honey", I replied.
"Mom, I wanna rock and roll" was her response. I kid you not. So I tuned into 96.5 because if she was gonna rock, it was going to be to classic 80's tunes. She stared out the window absently and I watched her little leg bopping up and down to the rhythm. My girl wants to rock and roll :-)
Out of the mouthes of babes
It's a classic scenario. You're out in public and your little preschooler, still learning the fine art of social etiquette, notices something that's a bit different about someone. Maybe the person is way taller or shorter than the average person, or wider or skinnier, or walks with a limp, or is hunched over, or has unique facial features, or purple hair, or a voice that stands out. And you hear her little voice pipe up loud enough for all to hear, "Mommy, Why is that person [fill in the blank]?" and you turn red as strangers stare disapprovingly at you and try and figure out an appropriate way to answer her sincere and innocent question without adding further offense while simultaneously trying to teach her that pointing such things out really loudly is actually not really the polite way to ask the question and yet the question itself is still ok to ask...
Yeah, so that was me and Bobbin in the parking lot of PCC the other day. We were strolling hand-in-hand and right in the middle of the parking lot Bobbin stopped, pointed, and called out "Hey, Mommy? Why is that lady so big?"
And she was... a very very large lady. And i have no idea if the lady herself heard the question. I know that Bobbin was asking it out of innocent curiosity and not out of any sort of mean spiritedness. She had never seen someone quite that large, and so she wanted to know more. It was nothing more than that.
I did get a dirty look from a woman behind me as she walked by. Someone who clearly has no children. And who was not completely free of her own curious characteristics.
So, I responded in a normal tone of voice to Bobbin and said "Well honey, people come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and everyone is different. Some people are tall, some are short, some are big, some are small. Some have lots of hair, and some have none. Some have dark skin, and some have light skin. And that's what makes the world such an interesting place - everyone is different and special. Just like you. No one is the same as you; no one is the same as anyone else."
And while I believe everything that I told her, I couldn't help also constructing the mental image of a miniature Mr. Rogers sitting on my shoulder smiling, and patting me on the head. As much as that man annoyed me when I was still in my "I'm not having kids" stage of my life, I appreciate him a million times more now because those are the messages he was trying to get across.
Whenever we are out in public, and Bobbin asks "What's that?" or "What's that person doing" or "Why does that lady talk like that" when someone in a wheelchair whizzes by, or when a man is walking slowly in front of us with a cane, or she hears the developmentally challenged woman speaking who helps out at the coffee shop we sometimes go to, I respond in a normal voice because I also don't want to offend by offering a whispered response or whisking her away. And usually the person will look right at us and smile and chime right in with the actual answer to her question and all is well. Sometimes they'll ignore us and that's fine too. And then the next time a wheelchair or man with a cane goes by, or she hears the lady at the coffee shop talking, she doesn't point it out or ask about it. She just continues about her business because it's not unusual anymore.
I'm gonna what, now?
We were sitting in the car on the way to get Bobbin's haircut. I was a bit frustrated because Bobbin's hairdresser had moved shop and the directions I had been given when I called were not panning out, and I was in the middle of nowhere with a cell phone that was about to go dead, and almost ready to call it quits. Bobbin sensed my frustration and asked if I was ok, and I explained I was feeling frustrated and why. And then I got my bearings straight and figured out where I was and all was calm, until an obnoxious teenager in his daddy's BMW decided to cut me off and then immediately switch lanes again and almost caused at least two accidents, one of which would have definitely involved me if I didn't have the split-section reflex response of a... well... mom of a preschooler. I cursed the driver with a nasty tone under my breath as he sped away (he subsequently ran a red stoplight, causing me to curse some more) and after I did so, Bobbin piped up from the back seat with a very loud and very firm, menacing tone that matched my own and said
"Mommy! You're gonna DIE!"
Just like that. Out of the blue. And in the split-second silence that followed I was racking my brain to try and comprehend WHERE in the world THAT came from, and whether it was in response to my cursing (I'm going to die and go to hell for swearing) or in response to the bad driving on the part of the little shithead who almost hit me (the dude could have killed us and Bobbin was pointing this out in her usual, direct, manner) or whether she was having some sort of premonition ala "Medium" and forsaw my death in her mind's eye. Or was saying it out of pure malace and this was the first of many warning signs to come that we were raising a little sociopath and someday our story would end up as a made-for-tv movie.
Luckily the logical mommy part of my brain took over before any of these ideas had a chance to really percolate and I realized that she must have heard it somewhere... school maybe... and that the frustration and emotion that I was expressing and that she was picking up on had triggered a memory of it because wherever she heard it had the same emotions surrounding it. But where the hell did she hear it?
So I responded by asking her what she had just said, as objectively as possible so she'd actually repeat it without sounding sheepish or embarassed or defiant. And she said "You're going to die, Mommy" in a more matter-of-fact tone without all the emotion and menace in her voice this time. I shivered and shook it off. "Why did you say that, sweetie? What does it mean? What does 'die' mean?" I asked. "You know?" was her response, in her usual curious voice. I felt a bit reassured. "Well, honey, when someone dies that means that they can't... uh..." and I found myself racking my brain for an explanation that doesn't involve an analogy to sleeping and not waking up, and that also doesn't imply that once one is dead they simply no longer exist because I actually don't believe that to be true; one continues to exist in the hearts and minds and memories and actions and values of everyone who knew the person but that concept was way too abstract for her to grasp at that age. So I settled on "well, when a person dies, that person is no longer able to be with you. They are gone, and can't hold your hand, or talk to you or hug you or kiss you. You remember them, but they cannot be there in front of you. And if the person is someone you love very much, you can feel really sad for a long time when that person is dead. Because you really want that person to be there in front of you, to talk to you and hold your hand and hug you and kiss you. So when you say to someone they are going to die, it's actually a very scary and sad thing for that person to hear".
Again.. no idea what of that explanation stuck. So I turned instead to trying to find the source and hopefully the context of the statement. "Why did you say this, sweetie? Did you hear someone else say it?" She nodded. "Who did you hear say this? Was it someone at school?" She nodded again. "Was it Lukey?" Lukey is a boy in her class with an older brother, and I've noticed lately that Lukey's taken to pretending to shoot guns at people. He'll stand there with a block in his hand, hold it out and point it at someone or something and then say "Pew pew pew pew" making shooting sounds and then grin and run away. In other words, he's a typical little boy with an older brother to teach him these games. Maybe Lukey had said something along these lines during one of his little "shooting" matches. She shook her head. "No, not lukey". "Then who, Bobbin? Where did you hear this? Who said it? If you tell me that, maybe I can tell you more about what it means".
She looked at me and said "Satsuki said it". Satsuki is a character in her favourite movie, "My Neighbour Totoro". And I knew that she was telling the truth because as she said it, the scene from the movie in which Satsuki screams at her younger sister "DO YOU WANT HER TO DIE?" and then breaks down into tears, came vividly to the forefront of my mind.
In the movie, Satsuki is a little girl about 10-12 years old, with a young sister who is about 4 years old. Their mother is in the hospital being treated for an unnamed disease. At one point during the movie it looks as though the doctors at the hospital are going to let the mother come home for the weekend, but then she catches a cold and they change their mind. They send a telegram to Satsuki's house but her father is at work so Satsuki opens it and reads it and all it says is that her father must call the hospital at once. So she walks into town and calls her father from the house of the one person in the village that has a phone, and her father phones the hospital and then calls Satsuki back to say that their mother will not be coming home that weekend. Mai, the younger sister is disappointed and has a tantrum, yelling "Not fair!" and in desperation and frustration, Mai's cries of unfairness finally getting to her, Satsuki finally crumbles, turns on her sister, and yells "DO YOU WANT HER TO DIE? MAI? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT" and then breaks down into tears and runs away. Leaving Mai with her own feelings of despair and abandonment, to break down into tears herself.
It's a very dramatic scene. And apparently one that Bobbin remembers vividly.
So I explained in detail what Satsuki was feeling when she said that, and reiterated my earlier explanation of what happens when someone dies and that the thought of not being able to hold her mommy's hand again or hug or or kiss her ever again, made Satsuki so very very sad just like it would make Bobbin sad, and that's why she shouted those words to her sister.
I think something resonated with Bobbin because she reached forward and asked to hold my hand, and I reached back and grabbed it, and she squeezed my fingers and I squeezed her back. Then she smiled at me in the rearview mirror and I smiled at her, and we were at the hairdressers.
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