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“How about we go play outside?” I asked, not sure I had it in me to try to fight him to take the nap he clearly needed, so I figured that it would be easiest to let him just run himself ragged until he passed out by himself.
As usual, our toddler and our five-year-old took off running, while Judah hung back with me, suddenly feeling too old for tag and all those other ‘kid’ games.
“What’s on your mind, bud?” I asked, looking over to where Judah was rocking in the chair Claire usually occupied.
“I’m worried about Mom.”
“About Mom? Why?” I asked.
“She throws up all day.”
“She’s gonna have a baby, bud,” I reminded him.
“She didn’t throw up with him,” he said, pointing to his brother.
“No,” I agreed. “You were probably too little to remember this, but when she was pregnant with your sister, she threw up all day and night for about three months straight.”
Judah considered that for a moment. “So, she’s going to have another girl?”
“We can’t say for sure yet. It’s not scientific to judge it by how sick the mom is. But we both suspect it’s a girl.”
We had an ultrasound coming up soon that would let us know for sure.
“She’s going to be okay,” I assured him. “But I know how you feel. The last time, I was worried about her all the time. But there are things I could do to help make her better, so that made me feel better.”
“Like what?”
“Like bring her water to sip or ice chips to chew on,” I told him. “Or bring her ginger drops. Make sure she has saltines to munch on.”
I could see Judah filing all that information away. I knew that his mother would never be without fresh water, ice chips, and ginger drops from that moment on.
I wondered, at times, if there were things Judah remembered, conscious or not, about his early childhood. He was overprotective of his mother, always conscious of her, worried if she was sick, and wanting to do sweet things for her.
Not having a frame of reference for a child his age, I had no idea if this was just normal for kids or not. And the reactions amongst my family were mixed as well. Some of them said that some kids were just randomly more empathetic or attached to their moms by nature, not because of some trauma.
Judah, of course, wasn’t privy to all the details about his biological father.
We’d consulted with experts, who’d told us that children should be aware of their parentage almost from day one. So we’d been open with Judah, when it was appropriate, about how I wasn’t his biological dad, but I was absolutely his father. I had the adoption papers to prove it.
We’d also been honest about the fact that Warren was dead.
What we hadn’t covered yet was that there had been abuse in the household. After consulting with a child psychiatrist, we’d all agreed that since the abuse did not currently factor into Judah’s life, that it was best left as a conversation to have with him as he matured.
Still, Claire and I worried sometimes that those first two years had left some subconscious worries or wounds in Judah that manifested in his overprotectiveness of his mom.
It was one of those things that only time would tell, though.
“Mom is going to be alright,” I assured him. “In a few weeks, she is going to be eating everything under the sun. Those spicy chips you like? You might want to start hiding them,” I warned him. “And I don’t mean in your closet or a dresser drawer. She’ll find them there. I once hid the chocolates I bought her for Valentine’s Day in an old shoebox in the closet. I came home one night to her sitting on the closet floor, shoveling the chocolates in her mouth,” I told him, getting a laugh out of him.
“She can have my chips,” he said with a nod.
God, he was a good kid.
He was always proving how kind of an individual he’d turned out to be.
When we had a crazy snowstorm, and I got up early to shovel out the driveway and front walk, he was coming out a couple minutes later, grabbing a shovel, and getting to work as well.
If his mom cooked a meal, he insisted he load the dishwasher.
