Family - Catch 40 Winks

When disagreements happen

May 20, 2012 · By Rachel ·

Voices were raised, we argued due to differences in opinion, in the car on the way to lunch from church today.

K tried to lighten the situation in between by saying, “Mummy, can you stop a while and see this…”, I was too occupied with the heated situation to look at what he was referring to.

Hb and I both stewed in stony silence during lunch. I said a silent prayer, and things were resolved during lunch.

But the little one did not forget.

He drew this when we got home after lunch. Told me that he was busy and needed to do this before his nap.

He then gave this to hb.

I realized what we have done in the afternoon, and what impact it might have on a little one’s mind.

It does get hard to be a positive role model for my child all the time.

It’s probably time to tell him before bed-time today, “Remember this morning, when mummy and daddy were shouting at each other? We are sorry that you got a little upset hearing it, mummies and daddies sometimes don’t agree with one another. But even when they quarrel, they will still love one another, and we definitely still love you.”

It’s important to say things like that to him so that he knows that disagreements are normal in a relationship, and we have both made the effort to resolved it. But even more important that I meant every word I said.

So I gave hb a big hug this evening.

Share it:

Sleeping Patterns

The Entitlement Mentality can start at 5

Wordful Wednesdays - Love Letters

Categorized: His World · Tagged: Family

A lot harder than I expected

March 26, 2012 · By Rachel ·

I cried twice while reading this book aloud to Kyle.

Teaching Kyle the concept of death through picture books turned out to be a lot harder for me than I expected. I thought that it will manageable for the both of us to start with books illustrating the death of pets, but it proved out to be otherwise.

This book gave a strikingly realistic and poignant picture of a child coping with the loss of a pet, and it just brought a plethora of memories, especially to the day that the family had to make a tough choice to put our family dog, Shawn to sleep. When I was midway reading the book to Kyle, I had flashbacks of the moment when my sister, dad, hb, mom, Kyle and I were huddled around Shawn, moments before he got the euthanasia shot from the vet. And the tears started flowing.

All I could say to Kyle when we finished reading the book was, "It‘s so sad…" Kyle was rather amused to see me cry while reading the book for the first time, and insisted that I read the book a second time that evening to see my response. I didn’t think that I would cry so easily the second time around, but I did. I told Kyle that it is ok to be sad when you miss someone.

I cried again while writing this post and reading this account again after 4 years, from my sisters now-defunct blog.

Kyle had little emotional attachment to Shawnie, as he was barely about 2 years old then. The only loss he has experienced so far is the death of one of his hamsters, Doh Doh, which he has little concern for. So he could not understand and found it rather amusing that, "Mommy cried after reading a picture book with me."

Death is a hard subject to broach, a lot harder than I expected. But I will still go ahead with helping Kyle learn about it, as it will not get any easier down the road if we ever have to experience a loss.

My extended family has since gotten a new dog, barely a few months after Shawn died, and we all love him dearly, but somehow it is not quite the same. Hb once said (after the loss of his extended family dog) that he will not want to have a dog ever in our nuclear family, as it will be too hard to experience the loss of a loved one every 14-15 years or so.

I will getting hold of this book Dog Heaven by Cynthian Rylant for myself the next time at the library.