Evan

I find it fascinating how different siblings can be. Born of the same parents and raised in the same home, and yet polar opposites in personality and habit. Such is the case in my family. Each of my sons is very definitely his own person. My oldest son, Eddie is almost ten. He is creative, active and generous. His first word was "WOW!", and he has pretty much lived his life by that motto. Scotty is my second, and he’s eight now. Scott has the strongest personality I have ever had the joy of knowing. There is no force on earth that can stop that boy once his mind is made. Jesse is three and a half. Recently I was told by a middle-aged mother that she wanted to marry him. Oh, yeah. He’s cute, but he’s trouble. Ross is still pretty little, but he has an impressive will and a fierce temper.
In counting, you may have noticed that I omitted number three. I assure you, this was not accidental. He is the topic of today’s soap box presentation. I have briefly described each of my other children. Now let me introduce Evan. Evan just turned six. You’ve seen the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade, right? You know those giant balloons that have to be grounded by about a hundred people to keep them from floating away? That’s the best way to describe my Evan. I tell you this to help you better understand my predicament.
One day about a year ago, Evan came down stairs and announced that he was going to get a penguin for a pet. Knowing that his little heart is a tender one, I wanted to be very careful not to hurt his precious feelings. My initial argument against his plan was that Kansas is not a cold enough place for penguins to live. He responded that we could fill the bath tub with ice and they could live there. We went back and forth for weeks. Every time I came up with a brilliant thought that I was sure would dissuade him, he answered back with what seemed to him to be a very rational solution. I was mortified. I had no idea how I was going to get out of the whole penguin thing, and even less idea how I had gotten so far into it to begin with.
It all came to a head one night some weeks later. At our house, Daddy does the tucking in. It gives him a chance to have a little alone time with the kids, and also to make absolutely certain that they are too wound up to sleep. And so it happened that I was downstairs enjoying some quiet when I heard Evan going off. I phrase it thus because he sounds roughly like a tornado siren when it isn’t being drowned out by a storm. Anyway, down he ran, his little face doused in tears. When I asked him what was the matter he managed to sob the words, "Daddy said penguins are wild!" I was speechless. Weeks I had spent trying to gently let my boy down, and Daddy had done it in one word: wild.
Obviously, Evan and I understood the word "wild" differently. The denotative meaning of the word wild is: living in a state of nature, not tamed (dictionary.com). Evan’s connotation of the word meant: "I can’t have one as a pet." We were communicating in completely different ways. If I had only known exactly what to say, and what it would have meant to my sweet Evan, weeks of stress and fruitless hoping could have been avoided. Besides that, I learned one other valuable thing. When he came up with the idea of our whole family riding inside a whale to get to Disneyland, I referred him directly to his father.