My man-boy

Tonight Elijah has been rather upset, and missing his dad. I knew this was coming, and I figured he'd be the first one to start getting sad, but I wasn't sure when it would hit. Elijah is such a sweet little guy, and he really loves his family. His emotional development is a bit complicated. He seems to understand that there are certain things in life that you can be upset about, but have to shrug them off and move on; while there are other things in life that it's OK to be really upset about and need time to cry or deal with the disappointment. The problem is, he often cannot differentiate between the two. He tries so hard to be a big boy and not cry when he's upset. Tonight I could tell he was wanting to cry. He was trying to talk to me about how much he's missing his dad (and was extremely upset that Jeremy wasn't here for Nahshon's birthday), but kept looking at the wall so he wouldn't cry. I told him I knew he wanted to be a big boy, but it's OK to be sad and it's OK to cry if he misses daddy. He said "I trying not to cry 'cause I want to be a man-boy". Say it with me now "aawwww". *sigh* I had him call Jeremy, and we made a countdown to help him grasp the concept of how long dad will be gone. I'm so proud of him for the efforts he's been making to help me out around the house, but it's so hard when he's sad about something I can't fix, and especially when it's something he doesn't fully understand. I love my little man-boy.