Cat and Mouse

Liam has been struggling lately, again.  Talking a lot about Will's death; easy to anger; clingy and difficult.  Not sleeping as well.  Acting out.  The babysitter is about at the end of her rope and God help us if she quits. 

Two steps forward one step back, that's what someone reminded me on Friday.  Never straight ahead.

But I do see it, sometimes, little parts of his future.  He fell* and cut his ear badly today.  Blood everywhere and one look tells me it needs stitches.  So off we go to urgent care.  And he can pull it together.  Can listen, can understand what is going to happen, can trust.  When he said "I will hold still, please don't wrap me in the blanket," I said, "Don't wrap him, he will hold still."  And he did.  Sank deeper into my lap, took some deep breaths, stopped crying and whining, and sat still for at least 5 minutes while I sang quiet songs in his good ear and showed him pictures on my phone.  Turns out they could glue his ear back together instead of stitching it, which I think hurt less, but required the doctor to hold the two edges of the cut together (firmly) while the glue set.

By all accounts so far he will be fine.  No permanent damage.  He now thinks it's hilarious that his ear was fixed with glue; although he still doesn't want to talk about how he hurt it. 

We came home, watched some TV, made pumpkin bread, made the jam, and finished sewing our cat and mouse presents for the little boy across the street's birthday party tomorrow.  They are a total rip off from here and I will make these again; now that I've got a template cut and worked through it a few times they will come together quickly.   Worked a little on his owl costume for Halloween.  Stay home day but for our one unexpected excursion.

He feels fragile to me these days, but I know he is strong; little, still very little, but strong.

*He fell while jumping from one couch to the other (which he knows he is not supposed to do) while I was outside for less than 2 minutes getting a box of plums from the car to make jam.  I heard the crash as I walked up the porch stairs, but still can't quite figure out what he cut himself on.