I Should Have Sent Her to School, Boogies and Hacking Cough Be Damned

I am so not a morning person, even though Tom insists I am. He doesn't see the difference between LIKING early rising for the sake of itself and HAVING to get up at the crack of dawn because the baby is screaming for me. Explaining this to him is like trying to reason with a cranky 3 year old. Not-so-secretly, I think that his stubborn but incorrect belief in my morning-personness is how he makes himself feel less guilty for never rarely getting up with our children. 6 years after Jack's birth, it's still working for him.

ANYWAY, I'm not a morning person by choice, make no mistake about that. I'm slow in the morning. Better with a shower first thing but still rather dull-witted. So when the kids hit me with their bombshells, I am ill-equipped to deal with it. Take this morning for instance:

N: Mommy, why did someone blast Uncle Jonathan with a blaster?

*sigh* Apparently my lame attempt to differentiate between "real" guns and Jack's nerf "blasters" was all for naught. 4 years old and she sees right through me.

C: I don't know, baby. It wasn't on purpose but it was still a terrible, horrible thing to do.

N: I know. Was it his friend?

Well, yes, but I don't think that adds to the story so...

C: NO. Friends don't do dangerous things around their friends and they don't hurt each other.

N: Was it a kid?

Interesting that she always calls Jon's killer "it", isn't it?

C: No, he was 20 so he was a grown-up.

N: I bet you really miss your brudder. I miss him, too. I never got to see him.

C: I do, buddy, and I know you do, too. It's very sad but we can still love him and he loves us very much.

N: Okay. Can I have some rice for breakfast?

*sigh* Yeah, I thought we could both use some empty carbs after that little wake-up session.

Did I handle that right? I don't know. I try to be matter-of-fact when she brings up Jon while not feeding what could become a morbid obsession. She's smart enough to know that if she misses Jack while he's at school then of course I miss my own brother. I just don't know why she is so fixated on her uncle and why she has to bring him up at such crazy-ass moments like that.