Somewhat Like An Onion, HM Elicits Tears

My boy got off the bus crying today. The first thing I noticed was
the red ears. Though they have dark hair, my boys are lily-white.
The daycare lady used to say they glowed in the dark. What do
you think, Diva? We lived by a large chat pile when the oldest
was born. Perhaps they are radioactive. When they run a fever, or
cry, or get embarrassed, their ears light up like Rudolph's nose.

Anyhoo...this is the little boy, the just-turned-9-year-old. He is still
babied, so at times he acts like one. He was trying NOT to cry,
as he climbed off the bus and entered the halls of Basementia. He
held in the tears until he got to me. He's either a sensitive little soul,
or a good actor. At first I didn't see him. I was in my aunt's office,
and he went down to my room. I thought perhaps he was afraid I
had left him there. Even though I have not even joked about this.
I called him over, and he buried his face in my side. He's not a talker,
this one. So we had to play A Hundred-and-Twenty Questions.

Were you afraid I left you? He shook his head. Nonverbal, this
lad. Always has been. At daycare, unless he was bleeding, she
could never figure out the injury. Did someone hit you? No. Did
someone hurt your feelings? No. Did someone say something to
you? No. Did someone take your stuff? No. Push you? No. Did
you get in trouble on the bus? No. Did you get in trouble at school?
No. Did your teacher say something? No. Did you pee or poop
your pants? No.Will you whisper in my ear and tell me? No.

Tears were rollling down his face now. He turned to the wall, so
as not to be seen, even though I had my arm around him and my
giant old-lady head right next to his. Do you want to go in the
teacher's bathroom and tell me? No. So I told him, "If you can't
whisper it to me now, you'll have to tell me in the car, and your
brother will hear, too." That boy sang like a canary.

He held out his left hand. The pinky finger was a bit swollen, and
a bit purple. Nothing like my mom's FAT RED PINKY FINGER,
though. "Classmate Girl shoved her desk and my finger was in the
middle of her desk and mine." He sobbed. I told him we would fix
him up. In that little-kid, trying-to-get-a-breath, unable-to-stop-crying
way, he huffed, "The person I told to get my stuff while I was in the
bathroom running cold water on it didn't get it." Sob, sob, sob, sob.
"We have to go back to the elementary because I don't have my
lunch bag!"

Okaayyyy. I'm not such an ogre that forgetting a lunch bag should
make the child hysterical. As a matter of fact, we had to go back
to my other building, too, because I had forgotten a book that I
need to inspect over the weekend. It must have been the day of
forgetting things. The minute I logged on to the school website in
Lower Basementia to take roll, a message appeared asking me
to please bring a fellow traveler's plan book with me. Too bad it
was sent 5 minutes after I left that building. I replied, and so did
she, saying that she'd go back and get it during her plan time. Did
I remember that I needed my book, and ask her to get it? Yeah.
When I saw her return, and walk by my window with her plan
book, I remembered. I didn't bother asking.

Oh, and her child was crying in the hall one day, too, after getting
off the bus. He wanted to eat some sweet-and-sour chicken that
was in his lunch the day before. That he had forgotten in her room,
and had sat out overnight, unrefrigerated. She told him it wasn't
any good any more. He heard. "I want to be mean and make you
cry and go hungry. You can't have it."

And you people send your kids off to us every day. So we can
make them cry, too. It's for their own good.