six...

What a strange week.

The happiness and anticipation of a little boy who knew he was getting a brand new bike for his birthday juxtaposed with the images on the news that I saw... but my little ones never did. I do this dance of what to tell them about horrific things that happen in the world around us. I have always said I'd be honest (and I am) but I also think that with the level of saturation and the ongoing nature of situations like this week, it is just too much. Too much for sensitive little people who take too much to heart as it is. So it has felt like a dual reality around here lately. The sweet innocence of watching little ones play (and one little one turn six!) all the while knowing that so much was happening in the world outside of their reality.

But that has left this mama feeling a bit raw and exhausted. My children are still so young, my oldest is only ten, and I have, so far, been able to live in a bubble of sorts. A protected world of our own making... one I didn't even realize we'd made but a lovely, sheltered place of home, books and play, nonetheless. This week somehow, for the first time, I jumped ahead to a world where they are grown and away, and realized that this world will still be... this world. What naive blissful mama delusion have I lived for the last decade? Every daydream of the future somehow took place in a world I've never seen.

I have somehow been able to find a way, with each tragedy that transpires, to retreat into my little nest and feel safe. Sad, shaken, rocked, angry but safe. I'm still trying to process how this time is different. How something that happened so far away cracked the veneer of my sheltered corner of the world and why now. That is going to take some sleep and quiet contemplation because clear thoughts are not to be had tonight.

Instead, there is this little man, enjoying his day, looking so big and grown compared to the tiny little thing I met six years ago. The sweet little baby that still feels almost too good to be true. Oh my goodness, how he makes the world a better place.

 

*He didn't actually receive the mask as a gift....it was how he "arrived" at his little party. Always in character...always theatrical...one of the things I love best about this little guy.