Working out his feelings

Children are much better communicators than adults, and are also far more thoughtful or reflective than we probably give them credit for. I spend a lot of time watching my son in the rear view mirror as we're driving, and you can see it in his eyes - that he's really chewing over something, trying to figure something out.

Little kids are also able to make strong, tangential, thematic connections between seemingly unrelated subjects. We were watching the movie "Enchanted" the other day, and there's a moment where a 10-year-old girl is saying to the princess, Giselle, that she never got to go shopping with her mother, who died. Now, my ex is not dead, but Zach gets very serious and somber for a moment, and looks at me and says, "I miss my mommy when she's not here". Smart kid.

There is the amusing side to this precocious insight, too. Apparently while being driven to pre-school today, she asks Zach, "how are you doing?". He answers, "I have to work out my feelings".

I pray that he'll always keep working out his feelings. That will save him a lot of heartbreak in the long run.

Smart kid, indeed.