Friday, August 14, 2009

the story of Jojo and her feelings

Today Lucy asked me to read her the story of Jojo and her feelings. *
I had no idea what story that was. "Can you tell me what happens in it?" I asked Lucy.
"Jojo not want share her toys with her baby sister, and she not nice to her." Lucy said.
Aha. That story of Jojo and her feelings.

So I told Lucy the story of Jojo, how sometimes she liked having a baby sister, and sometimes she didn't. She especially didn't like it when her baby sister started wanting to use her very special scooter (that we just got two days ago). And so one day, Jojo knocked over her baby sister and took the scooter, and scooted away into the other part of the yard while her sister cried.
And how Jojo's mommy took care of the crying sibling, and then talked to Jojo, and they talked about feeling good at having her scooter back, but bad about having made her sister cry. And then Jojo decided to tell her sister sorry and give her a hug.

I decided Lucy's humongous smile during the telling of the story was because of relief that we were discussing deep issues non-judgmentally, and also excitement over obviously dangerous thoughts, and not some sort of relishing in the hypothetical suffering of her (I mean Jojo's) baby sister.

Does anyone but me have any sense that maybe this wasn't just a bedtime story? Anyone?

*For those of you just tuning in, Jojo is the gifted baby possum that occasionally shares in our family's adventures.

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