Tears of Tease!

We have a lot of laughter in this house. We use a lot of sarcasm. We tease one another.  This has always been our way.   The boys have caught on to the wit in the house and have started to use some of their own.  I have to admit I am proud.

Chase and Ryder are so very different and this is evident to everyone who knows them.  Their differences are clear even where they are similar.  For example, they are both very sensitive boys, empathetic and caring.  However, where Chase is very verbal in all of these ways, Ryder is quiet about it.  Chase will tell me how beautiful I am (and every other girl, for that matter!) Ryder will pick me flowers.  Chase will say he missed me so much.  Ryder will run to me and give me the biggest hug I have ever received.  Chase cares what people think and do and wants to think and do as they do.  Ryder does things his own way and isn't interested in the crowd.   It is truly amazing to watch two boys handle the same situation so differently.

Today, my heart broke a thousand times as Chase cried.  Apparently, he was teased at school.  This was enough to send  him into two year old hysterics.   He is not the type of kid who is picked on, for this I am grateful.  And, because he is being raised in a hilarious home by, wink wink, hilarious parents, he has a sense of humor for all things funny.

Another thing about Chase is he has fantastic verbal skills.   Since the day he spoke his first word he has spoken clearly, and correctly.  He forms grammatically sound sentences and corrects his peers for mispronounciations. Sometimes we are baffled by the words he uses and how he says them, correctly, every time.

So, to find out that he got teased for saying "hambooger" not "hamburger" left me baffled.   When he said,  "hambooger" most of the kids laughed except, according to Ryder, Ryder and Ellie. The kids laughing immediately triggered Chase's tears.  Kids will be kids.  My guess is they laughed when they heard booger and not at the fact that Chase said it wrong, because at 4, most of the kids still mispronounce a lot.  Truth is, that is exactly the type of thing Chase would laugh at.  Ryder too. But when I asked him why he and Ellie did not laugh he said, "Chase was so upset it was not funny anymore."  That's Ryder's sensitive side overtaking his silly, booger-silly, side.

Most of me wonders if Chase said "hambooger" on purpose, to make people laugh.  I wonder this because he so rarely mispronounces words and he does have a bit of class clown in him.  He cried, whimpered even, for a long time and I wanted to cry along with him.

(Although this post was unfinished and unpublished until 9/25/13, I wanted this story documented.)