Sweet Baby James

One day MadHatter and I were talking.  When you have a 3 year old, this happens a lot (and I mean, a lot) and sometimes I do it on autopilot.  You know, listening with one ear, but doing something else at the same time.   I was half listening to her story about her and this boy she had met, and how they were playing with the ghost in the house.  The ghost wasn't new, he appears in a lot of her tales, but this was the first I had heard of James.  When I inquired if he was a new friend from school, she said no.  Now I'm really curious about where she met James, so I asked her if he was a friend from the park?  Again, no.  You would think by now she would have realized that I would like her to tell me where she met this boy James.  That she would have volunteered the needed information instead of making me ask twenty questions.  But, as anyone who has, or has spent time around, a 3 year old knows, she was not giving up the information unless directly asked.  So,  I asked her where she met James and, more importantly to me, why I had not met him?  I mean, she is only 3 after all - she doesn't have the opportunity to be out an about in the world for very long without me by her side, much less long enough to meet someone new and know them by name.  She told me I was being silly, that of course I knew James, he was her baby brother.  Oh.  Silly Mom.  How could I have forgotten James.

My listening autopilot went off immediately and I took back the controls.  If it was a game of twenty questions she wanted, well, she got it.  And perhaps even a bit more.  The details on how James came to be her baby brother are still a bit fuzzy.  She never really answers that question but will answer almost everything else in great detail. Some of the details change but it seems she is very clear on others  He is a year old ("I don't know exactly how old, Mama, but he is the same as Laney").  He is not tall, but he is not short "like Stinkerbell" and he can wear the clothes that Stinkerbell has outgrown - "Mama, maybe baby James would like these pants instead of giving them to Laney"?  I reply, "Maybe, but I don't think that pink is really his color".  "No mama, pink is his color.  He told me yesterday".  He can't talk yet in words that I can understand, but MadHatter is his big sister so "I understand him perfect.  I was a baby when we were in California so I still speak baby.  You don't speak it anymore".  I am told not to worry, she will keep me updated on everything I need to know about his life.  Not worried MadHatter, not worried at all.

I did ask her if James was ever going to come live with us.  You see, James has only ever lived with us once.  When we were in California.  He lived with us at our house for about 2 weeks and then moved with us to our temporary "hotel house", where we had to stay for almost 6 weeks before moving down here to Chile.  I asked MadHatter why we didn't bring James with us when we came to Chile and she just looked at me like I was a losing my mind.  "Of course we didn't bring him Mama...He doesn't speak Spanish"...  I asked her again about a month ago and she told me he was still back at the "hotel house" and didn't want to leave because he really loved it there.  His friends were close and came to visit him all the time, and he still doesn't speak Spanish.  I wasn't to worry though, he wasn't lonely.  Today, he was brought up in the car on the way home.  I had to ask...Where is James today, MadHatter?  "At the doctor's office.  He had to have his neck cut and he can't come home for a bit."  I asked her if he was going to be OK and she said no, not until I can get him his band-aids but then he will be fine.

No, the significance of James is not lost on me.  And I love that she has created such a great way to dialog with me about things that she just doesn't know how to talk about otherwise.  It's funny that at three she has created the proverbial "friend".  You know the one...you're talking with someone and you say, "So, I have this friend who has this problem..."  She just doesn't have the words or the emotional maturity to tell me some of the things she is wrestling with right now.  There have been big, make that BIG, changes in her life this past six months.  She just can't find the right way to say that learning a new language is hard, and a bit scary.  She doesn't know how to tell me that she misses her friends, the ones she has known all of her life, and that makes her a bit lonely.  She wants me to know that she may have been apprehensive about my surgery, but that it all turned out fine in the end, but just can't find the right words.  So, James supplies the words for her.  And the emotions.  And in the end, I don't care who does the talking and the sharing.  It doesn't matter how it comes about, I just care that we keep talking, and discussing, and she knows that no matter what is bothering her James, that she he can always come talk to me.

(And P.S.  for those of you that think that she just wants a baby brother, I will share with you what she told me herself when I asked  - "Are you crazy Mama.  Then I would have to share my toys with Stinkerbell and a baby.  NO WAY."  Guess we are off the hook).