Empathy

I admit, I've always been a little concerned over Sylvie's seeming lack of empathy.  Maybe it was b/c I sometimes compared her reactions to Brady's.  Brady is usually sensitive and sweet.  For example, when I stubbed my toe and had tears in my eyes and said, "ow!" Brady immediately asks, "Are you okay Mommy?"  He reacted well to the "Please don't do that; that makes Mommy sad" method of "discipline" b/c he didn't want me to be sad.  It seemed that Sylvie didn't really care.  Her reaction to my "Please don't do that; that makes Mommy sad" or my sad face, is a devilish grin or smirk. :p

But today I saw otherwise.  It squeezed my heart.  I was watching Next Great Baker (yeah, there's nothing on tv; I just found this show yesterday and got sucked in to a marathon) when Sylvie came to find me after waking up from her nap.  She watched the show for a little bit with me.  In this episode, one of the contestants dropped out of the competition b/c he has a brain tumor and needed to be home with his family.  It was very emotional.  I was crying, but hiding my tears from Sylvie.  She kept turning to look at me, but I'm pretty sure she never saw me crying.  She did ask me though, "Why doze people crying?" and I said, "They are saying goodbye to their friend b/c he's going home to his family." and when she turned back to me, I saw the tears streaming down her sweet little frownie face.  oh my heart.  I started to cry too and that made her cry more and she said, "But they sad!"  She couldn't exactly articulate why she was sad, but her tears and heartbreak were genuine and evident.  oh sweet girl, I love you so much.