A long and rambly mid-week post.

Yesterday morning we had Sesame Street on during breakfast. When Will finished eating I sat sleepy Evie down and went to get a wash cloth to clean him up. While I was out of the room, something happened on Sesame Street. I didn't catch the entire story, but there was something involving a little girl and a polar bear. Then she had to leave the bear. When it ended Will burst into tears. Big, fat tears. I quickly finished wiping his hands off and gave him a big hug and asked what was wrong.

"She love the polar bear."

"I know buddy, she did love the polar bear."

"She love the polar bear and she have to go away." Then he started sobbing uncontrollably again. I held him and bounced him (because it's hard to turn off the instinct to rock and bounce when there is crying, even though I knew Will didn't need to be bounced, he needed something else) and asked again what was wrong.

Through his tears, he finally said, "Maybe sometime I have to leave something I love." And then the sobs came again, big and heavy. And then my heart broke for my poor little guy.

I knew at some point we'd have a conversation about losing something you love. I was not prepared for that conversation to happen yesterday. We sat down and I hugged him and he cried. Lorne was working from home in the bedroom; after hearing the commotion he came out and I told him what Will was upset about, and we all sat on the couch and snuggled and talked about all the people that love Will. He calmed down. Lorne went back to the bedroom to work.

When he thought of the girl and the polar bear again several minutes later, he started crying. I told him that sometimes sad things happened and that when they do it's okay to be sad, that it was okay to feel sad that the little girl had to leave the polar bear. This didn't do much to make either of us feel better.

What I wanted to tell him was that he could stop crying because he would never have to worry about losing something he loved. That all the people and things he loved would always be here for him, that no one would ever leave him, that our cats will never die, that life would never hurt him. I wanted more than anything for that lie to be true, but it's not. I couldn't bring myself to tell him something blatantly false in the hopes to calm him down at that moment.

Today, we were driving to the store when something weird happened with the electrical system in the station wagon. The speedometer stopped working, then the clock turned off. I tried to signal to get out of the left lane but when I turned the signal on it failed too. Then the car started slowing down. We were going 50, so it had a while to slow down, but as cars piled up behind me and then peeled out to pass me on the right, I started crying. I may have said some words not for childrens' ears, and I may have screamed a little. But mainly I cried as visions of being stuck in the lefthand lane of a busy road with an almost dead mobile phone, a two-year-old, and an infant flashed through my head. I was able to coast the car into a left turn lane so I'd at least be out of traffic when it totally died. Then I put the car in neutral, pulled the emergency brake on, and attempted to rev the engine up. Somehow this worked, the battery charged up, and we were okay to go - as long as every time I stopped at a light I put it in neutral and gunned the engine.

I stopped crying once I realized that we'd probably at least be able to make it back home without the car dying. Will said, "Mommy, are you sad?"

I said, "I'm just nervous buddy, I think the car is broken."

"Yesterday I was sad about the polar bear," he said.

"I know Buddy," I said. "The story about the polar bear was sad."

"It's okay to be sad Mommy," Will said. "I'm sad about the polar bear and it's okay. Mommy is sad about the car and it's okay."

Our sweet little boy was trying to comfort me. When we got home he gave me a hug. Sometimes being a parent is an amazing, wondrous thing.