Our Sweet, Sensitive Kid and the Giving Tree

While enjoying sushi with acquaintances of ours this evening, one aspect of Abigail's personality was pointed out to us that I never really noticed as deeply and profoundly before toinght.


I know Abigail is a sweet kid, with a big heart.  I have even mentioned that she has tried to take care of Lar or I when we have been sick, but she is a really sensitive kid too.  I don't mean the overly-emotional-cries-over-everything kind of sensitive.  I mean the understands-the-feelings-of-others kind. For example, this morning in a store to buy her another swimming suit, Abigail heard a baby/small child crying.  She was very concerned for this kid.  "The baby is crying, Mama."
"That's right, Abigail.  Why do you think the baby is crying?"
"The baby is sad.  The baby wants her mama.  The baby misses her mama.  The baby is hungry too.  Is the baby okay, Mama?"


She was very  concerned for this child that she couldn't even see and even after the child stopped crying, Abigail still wondered if she was okay.


Larry also pointed out that Abigail frequently will look at one of us during the day and say "Are you okay, Mama/Baba?" with genuine concern in her voice.

This evening, I read to Abigail The Giving Tree for the first time.  I had thought that she was too young to understand what was happening on any meaningful level and for that reason, I hadn't bothered to read it to her before.  But once again, she surprised me in a big and wonderful way.  She was so sweet and hung on every word, studied the simple pictures.  When the boy wanted money and took the apples or branches or trunk, each time, she cupped her hands together, scooped something out of thin air, and tried to hand it to the tree and to the boy, saying "Here you go!  Here it is!"  Every time something was asked of the tree, she wanted to give.  By the end of the book, she was barely breathing when she purred in my ear "They are sad, Mama."  Then she wanted to read it again.  She did, with her father the second time, with the same reactions throughout the book.


I love my sweet, wonderful child.  I only wish her birth mother could know what an amazing kid she brought into this world because this is how she came to us:  thoughtful, empathetic, affectionate, irrepressible, sensitive.