Yesterday an interesting thing happened. It wasn’t interesting in a good way either. After Jacky woke up for the day, he didn’t want to immediately go downstairs to start his day. He ran into my room and dropped his toys and wanted to play there. I took the opportunity to quick dry my hair.

About halfway through getting ready we started to hear noises. I had been hearing them all morning. The neighbors were having some construction done on their townhome. They must have been doing most of it upstairs. It was loudest there. When Jack heard it, he stopped in his tracks. I peaked at him. He looked terrified. He is not a scaredy cat kid. I would describe him as exuberant, brave, adventurous  and curious. Suddenly, he ran into the bathroom with me. Shut the door, and clung to my legs. The noise continued. He started to say, “noise scary. Mommy mommy. Noise scary” I squatted down slowly, since I am still injured. I wrapped him in my arms. He crawled onto my lap and buried his face in me. Again, this is abnormal for him to act so frightened. After a little while of telling him that he was safe, it was just a noise, they are just building something, mommy will keep you safe, there is nothing to be scared of. I suggested we go downstairs and watch a movie, so we don’t have to listen to the noises. Jack is in a very independent state right now. “Jacky do” and “no, walk” are two of his favorite phrases. He also associated hand holding with not walking, so he doesn’t care to hold my hand. As we stood up he said “mommy hand walk” and grabbed my hand. He made me hold his hand while we gathered all his favorite toys that always go up and downstairs with him. Then, after I put them all inside his “little blanky” (a Cars pillowcase that has become his blanky. Which is rather handy for transporting all of his angry birds) He said “Mommy carry” I said, “You want me to carry you downstairs?” Jacky said “Yeah” and lifted up his arms. I carried his toys and him downstairs.

cuddle

This is actually from two days ago, when I first injured myself. But we were cuddling.

We watched Toy Story. I wasn’t allowed to leave his side for long at all. We spent most of the day watching  Toy Story over and over. He sat next to me or on me all day. I did take some time for cleaning and he followed me around. If I went to the bathroom he had to follow me.

He started talking about the noises before bedtime. Telling me “Noise, scary. Mommy safe” And would curl into me again. Sigh, I felt so bad for him. I did my best to tell him he was always safe, they were just noises and there was no danger. I told him all his birds and Buzz, Woody, and his blanky keep him safe too.

This is the first time I have encountered something like this with him. I was happy to comfort him. I wanted to make it all better. Recently my bff posted a blog about a similar topic. How to deal with things that hurt your kids that aren’t physical. It is hard. He couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t make the noise stop. I could only distract him as best I could and hope he didn’t notice the noises all day long. I tried to explain they weren’t scary. A two year old doesn’t get that though. It broke my heart that he was frightened. I was baffled that he got so scared, since that is very unlike him. I took it very seriously because of that. I had a lot of patience for him, I didn’t brush it off, I comforted him all day. If I hadn’t been injured, we would have went to the Children’s Museum, just to get out of the house and not have to hear it. I wish I wasn’t hurt because I would have loved to take him away from the scary thing.

I did my best with the option I had though. That is all that matters. I talked to him about it. We kept the conversation open all day. I took his fears seriously. I didn’t dismiss him. I comforted him. I hope that we can always keep this line of communication open as he grows. I hope that he can come to me with a fear or concern and I can be the mom that listens and addresses it as best I can. That has always been my one big hope for my relationship with my child. I don’t want him to be afraid to come to me, especially as a teen. I got a glimpse into how I will have to handle things. The training begins now. The relationship building began 2 years ago and everything led to this point. I was “safe” he said it over and over all day “Mommy safe” I always want to be Mommy Safe.