Role-playing

Every day for the past many weeks, whenever one of us has to go to work, Henry goes through his routine lamenting our departure. There aren’t tears anymore, usually, but he says the same words in the same voice. Every time. 

So it was with great relish that we turned the tables on him earlier this week. We took advantage of the weekly rate we’d established with our sitter, asking her to take Henry our for a while so we could get a few free hours at home the day after our first dress rehearsal. As they were putting on shoes and coats, we said, “But... Henry, I don’t want you to go!”

He looked at us for a minute, and then didn’t miss a beat. “I know, Mommy, but I have to go,” exactly the words we say back to him. It was so cool! We played the scene out completely, even singing the Daniel Tiger song using Henry’s name instead of the word grownups: “Henry comes back!”

We opened to door for him and kissed him goodbye, just as he does for us, and when the door was closed, we might have high-fived each other. It felt like a parenting victory! So often the lessons we teach our children go by unnoticed, uncelebrated. But in this moment we felt like we could actually see Henry learning about saying goodbye and coming back. And sure enough, when he did come back later that afternoon, we ran to greet him and hug him, shouting, “You came back!!”

Just as he does for us.