Keep Hope Dead

Being socially clueless has its benefits.

Like today, when we told the boys that Kathiana would be returning to Costa Rica in September.  Both boys were upset and asked her a lot questions about why she needed to leave and if there wasn’t some way that she could stay.  After it was clear that she could neither stay nor return, Zach tried to console us all with, “Well, we can get another au pair, right?”

“But we’ll never find one as good as Kathi,” replied Jeff, trying feed Zach a line.

“How do you know?  You can’t know that.  You don’t have any evidence.  There is no proof yet, not until we see them all.”

Which is a good point.

That he should have kept in his head.

Luckily, Kathiana knows how much Zach loves her.  And he did cry a few minutes later when he gave her a hug.  But he didn’t fall apart the way I feared he might.  His recognition that, though it sounds awful, it might turn out to be great, has helped us through many a loss (not to mention trying lima beans and lamb).

Now if we could just teach him to keep that hopeful outlook all bottled up inside things will be so much better.  Oh wait…