In search of The Happy

In further demonstration of his future as an actor, Isaac is obsessed with people's emotional states in an almost objective and calculating way. He is particularly observant when we're watching TV together to see if characters are sad. He could care less if they are happy, which might at first seem mildly disturbing, but I like to think it's because "sad" isn't the norm in his life, and it's more interesting as the outlier. Anyway, as an example, in Toy Story 2, what does Isaac remember most? That one scene where Cowgirl Jessie was sad. The why (that her little girl grew up without her -- oh, the sobs if I don't stop thinking about it) is completely unimportant. He has a Cowgirl Jessie doll and every now and then when playing with her, she'll stop whatever she's doing and slouch over while Isaac makes an appropriately solemn face to announce that "She's sad."

Isaac is so fascinated with the state of Sad that he practices emoting it himself. For no apparent reason at all, sometimes he'll stop whatever he's doing, slouch over in a deliberate and exaggerated way, and sigh. "I so sad," he'll say. "Why are you sad, buddy?" someone will inquire. Sometimes he'll tell you that he's sad in the manner of a character from a movie -- "I Nemo's Daddy. I can't find Nemo anywhere. I so sad." -- or other times you get "I don't know." He never, ever "practices" being happy. Again, it's not like he needs practice at that, since he is spontaneously happy or giggling like 90% of the time.

Lately, though, he's had a couple of truly tragic moments where it was clear that he was hurting and confused inside, where perhaps his play-acting at "sad" came in handy to express himself. Friday morning, Daddy was exiting the bathroom with a load of dirty clothes and Isaac, always underfoot, ran in front of Daddy's legs. Daddy didn't see Isaac, and accidentally pushed him down. Isaac skinned his knee a bit on the wood floor and immediately requested attention, but Daddy had his hands full and had already headed in a different direction to dump off the laundry. This was something that truly hit Isaac to the core -- first that his dearest love Daddy pushed him to the ground (though it was a complete accident), and then that Daddy could run off without any owie-kissing at all. Isaac just started bawling, much more so than would be expected for a simple knee-scrape. He turned to me: "Mommy, kiss my owie! Make it better!" I complied, but that wasn't enough, he cried on. He turned to me again, tears streaming, pleading, "Mommy, get my happy back?"

The same thing happened when AnthonyCarlos came to our house for a playdate Friday afternoon. Anthony wanted to play with Isaac's Molly train, but Isaac was convinced it was his turn. Isaac was not content to play with another member of his extensive train collection. You could see in his eyes that he wanted to take the train away, but that he recognized the ultimate authority of the almost-5-year-old Anthony. This internal conflict broke our poor young man, and he again began to fuss uncontrollably. After a few minutes of unsuccessful explaining that we share-our-toys-like-AnthonyCarlos-share-theirs, an again-tearful Isaac turned to me and begged, "Mommy, please get my happy back?"

Apparently his Happy can be returned with a little intensive snuggle session that includes some silly neck kissing, so all is not lost, young man. But still, how genuinely "sad" is that? Poor guy.