First Signs of Empathy

If I haven't already told you, Stan B loves trucks. LOVES them. He has sat in a fire truck twice and a dump truck once (the perks of my job). He also enjoys a bus. We rode the bus from downtown to our house one evening. He was transfixed during the entire ride. Now when he sees buses he says, very enthusiastically with finger pointing and arm extended, "BUH!" He used to call trucks that too but now he can say, "TRUH!" just as enthusiastically. He has this little dump truck that he enjoys pushing around outside and filling it up with pine cones, leaves, balls or muddy water. So, of course this means that his favorite reading material is automobile related. He likes a book called, can you guess it? Yes, "Trucks" Oh, yeah, and he likes trains too because he loves the book "The Little Red Caboose" which he calls "Choo Choo" which are the two sweetest sounds that come from his mouth. "Choo Choo?", he says, with palms up, while looking for that book. It's truly adorable. His current favorite is "Richard Scarry's First Little Learners Cars and Trucks". I think I read that to him 10 times in a row last night. (UGH.) Here we are on the construction page:

When we got to that page there is a dump truck emptying a load of dirt and it is falling on top of Mr. Pig:

Stan B saw this and furrowed his brow. All serious and concerned. It was my first "Ah, crap" moment as a parent. As in, "Ah, crap, how do I explain this to a 19 month old?" I chose to be honest. I said something like, "This seems to concern you. It looks like the driver of the dump truck is not paying attention to where he dumps the dirt and it also looks like Mr. Pig wasn't paying attention to where he was standing." Stan B still with a concerned look on his face says, "Uh oh!" So I repeat myself and then add, "The dump truck is accidentally dumping dirt on Mr. Pig. Should we tell the driver to stop?" and so I pointed at the driver and said, "Hey! You're dumping dirt on Mr. Pig!" Stan B looked at me and smiled. I'm thinking to myself, "Pheeewww! I think I getting through to him!" Then he looks at the picture again and says "uh oh" again. I say, "We can offer Mr. Pig our help. Mr. Pig do you need a hand getting up?" and I put my hand out. I explain to Stan B that Mr. Pig will probably need a bath afterwards but that pigs actually enjoy the mud. Then Stan B does this:

He puts his hand  out to Mr. Pig as if to give him a helping hand. How sweet is that? When I tried to turn the page he wouldn't let me and said, "Uh oh!" and put his hand out to Mr. Pig again. He really wanted to help him out of the dirt!

It was sweet and made me think that perhaps he does have empathy because boy, oh, boy, the way he smacks poor Dickie the Cat and looks at her with that devious grin makes me think he's a bit crazy sometimes. So this was a nice little window into his empathetic soul! Mr. Pig would say thank you, I'm sure!