Jake and Hannah, Arby's, and Estates

When I picked Jacob up from school today, I thought he'd be in a great mood. I'd had a parent-teacher conference with his teacher, and she had only wonderful things to say about him. I told him about it and he seemed a little pleased, but was still in a rotten mood. At one point, he said, "Benjamin just makes my life more difficult." I told him that was a really mean, hurtful thing to say. I asked, "Wouldn't you feel horrible if something bad happened to him, like he got hurt?" He shrugged. And I wondered about my child and if he could possibly mean that.

And then.... a few minutes into it, a lightbulb lit up. Oh yeah.... Jacob gets like this when something else is bothering him. Duh.

"Um, Jake? Did something happen at school today?"

"No."

"Are you sure? Is something bothering you?"

Silence.

"Anything at all?"

Pause.

"Well, it's just that sometimes after we do our homework on the computers at BAC, Hannah wants to go outside and I don't always want to. And if I don't, then she gets really, really upset."

So then we talked about how it's okay to disagree. It's okay to not always want to do the same thing. It's okay as long as you're nice about it. I said sometimes it's also nice to do what the other person wants. He said he does do that. So then I said what Jacob often needs to hear most: "Disagreeing with her doesn't make you a bad person. You're a good kid. You're a nice kid. You're allowed to have different opinions."

And then he was magically better and decided Benjamin wasn't so bad after all.

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So, Jacob took it to heart when I told him I really want to know when things bother him. I really do. His mind is always going 100 miles per hour. I'm guessing he enjoys video games so much because it's his time to just focus on ONE thing at a time. With his constant thinking and analyzing, he worries a lot.

On the way home, Jacob said, "When are we going to eat at Arby's again? I really like Arby's."

I said, "Oh, I don't know. It's not really very good and it's expensive for a fast food restaurant. We can spend just a little more and go to a regular restaurant."

Jacob said, "I really like their curly fries."

I said, "Yeah, they're pretty good."

A minute or two later, Jacob said, "When you say things like you don't like Arby's, I just feel like you're discounting my opinion."

He humbles me.

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Oh, and one more little "Jacob" thing...

- His teacher said she was asking a group of them to guess a word that starts with "e" and means all of someone's property and what they own... And Jacob got it -- "estate." She was shocked.