Just this week, I watched each of my boys as they let tears fall down their rosy cheeks.
Samuel is our newest and has just begun to show tears as he cries. Mostly he cries because of hunger or gas, but really Tony and I aren't always 100% sure why he is crying.
Isaac cried this week because something "wasn't fair", or when I said "no" to a Halloween candy at 8am. He is still in the boundary-testing phase and usually ends up crying when a boundary is enforced.
This week was the first time in a while that Alexander has really cried. You see, we have a paper problem going on. The boy cannot get enough white paper for drawing and making books. And none of it can ever be recycled. After emptying a backpack full of papers from school, I asked him numerous times to put it away if it's important to him. Fast forward two days when I finally recycled this pile of papers. After he asked where they were, and I responded "in the recycling", I could see his little body crumple. I had recycled his masterpieces and he bawled his eyes out. I apologized, but the tears kept coming. I had crushed him. Tony felt so sorry for him that he retrieved the papers from the recycling.
You see, at any given time of day there is a 50% chance that someone is crying. With Samuel, I am still learning what makes him cry. I can normally guess what will make Isaac cry, and Alexander reserves his tears for deeply personal matters (mostly). As their mom, it's not my job to simply wipe away the tears or make them stop. I want to understand the tears and see them coming before they even know. I want to listen and feel whatever emotion it is that makes them cry. I want to hold them and tell them it's okay. And then I will wipe away their tears.
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