It's not news to anyone what happened this morning in CT. The most horrific thing any parent (can't) even imagine. Sending your child to school, and not having them come home that day. Such a tragedy. More than once today, it brought tears to my eyes. I was so preoccupied listening to the radio on the way home, that I missed my exit. This brought me to tears, lol. All I wanted to do was hold and hug my kid. So an extra 5 minutes, I got to give my kid a hug and a kiss. He asked me to carry him to the car, I always say no, but this time, I was more than happy to. 20 families cannot do that tonight. 20 families of students only a year or two older than my kid. They're just children! Babies!
We got home, and I asked him to go play with his cars. I didn't think he was old enough to understand or to explain this situation to, although, a part of me wanted to tell him if he sees anyone with a gun, to run the other direction and hide. I wasn't sure how to bring this up without scaring him.
He walked into the room in the middle of the newscast. I asked him to leave, and he says "No mommy, I need to understand this. I need to know why this happened. Mom, I need to know!!" I really haven't seen Ares be so adamant about anything like this before. So I paused the news and told him that a very bad person did some very bad things to kids his age. (I left out the school part.) I let him know that the bad guy killed himself and that he can't hurt any one else.
This is when he decides to hit himself in the head, fall over, stick his tongue out and stare up at the ceiling for a good 40 seconds without talking or moving. I asked him what he's doing, and he says that 'the bad guy died like that.' I wasn't sure how to react.
He follows with an explanation that if he sees a bad guy with a gun, he's going to grab his long sword and 'hit the bad guy and get my - and save all my friends so our mommies don't cry and we can see them again.' Apparently the 45 seconds of the news that he watched, he picked up A LOT more than I would have ever imagined.
I took the moment to explain that if he sees a person with a gun, that he needs to run away and follow directions that adults tell him. If he's in a cartoon, or in his playroom, or dreaming in his sleep, then he can go ahead and get his sword or nun-chucks and play, but if he really sees someone with a gun "what do you do?" Ares: "Do this!" (And he runs away as fast as he can). I guess that's the best that I can ask for. The disturbing thing about my son, he wants to see the blood. That scares me. I had to lie and say there wasn't a lot of blood, and that news cameras don't show blood.
Babies, these children are just babies. Babies of people just like me. My heart goes out to each and every one of them. I can only hope that this country does more with mental health programs.
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