Another breakthrough

This will be a quick post—the week has been crazy busy with school-related stuff. Who knew kindergarten would be this hard? (Ha-ha) I will write more later, including his special education evaluations, which we’re in the middle of now. But I wanted to share something that happened last night.

After dinner, Garrett began talking about the stove. (Remember over a month ago I wrote about the deep black gash Bob found on the top of our “almost” new stove? And when we asked him who did it, he didn’t say a word, which meant he spent much of the night, sitting in time-out.)

Because that happened so long ago, I almost forgot about it. (Bob bought appliance paint and did a great job covering up the damage.) So at first I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. He kept saying, “Papa fix it.” (Except he doesn’t pronounce his “f’s” very well so that added to my confusion.) Which I replied, “Yes, he did.” Then he started to pretend to hammer something. I asked what he was doing. He said, “big hammer,” and then I asked if he did it, which he nodded yes. Then came the big question: why? He fiddled in place for the longest time and with a little smile on his face finally confessed, “Want to break it.” Okay, that was a big statement coming from such a little guy. I explained that mommy and papa don’t make a lot of money and can’t buy a new stove. That what he did made mommy and papa sad and mad. Then I asked him how he would feel if mommy broke his big bicycle. He didn’t like that at all, but he got what I was saying. I ended by hugging and thanking him for telling the truth. It felt like a big breakthrough. It was as though he finally felt safe enough to fess up. What do you think?