The Worst Day in the Universe

Wednesday night, as we were eating dinner, I noticed Ethan in distress. It was a quiet distress, the kind where a tear occasionally rolls down a cheek, and the face scrunches up in an attempt to hide it all. I watched for a moment, then asked what was wrong. "NOTHING!!" was the reply. Hmmm.... He's probably mad that I put rice or chicken or something on his plate that looks or smells disturbing to his picky sensibilities. Whatever. So, I continued eating and attempted to ignore what I believed was the beginning of a fit. A few minutes later, the scene hadn't changed and he hadn't eaten, so I pulled him aside to discover the cause of all this sadness. He refused to say anything until I came with him to his room. After the door was shut and I prodded a bit I got this: "TOMORROW IS GOING TO BE THE WORST DAY IN THE WHOLE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!" It took me awhile to puzzle out why tomorrow was being met with such aversion, but I finally figured out that he'd overheard us discussing St. Patrick's Day, and all the green and pinching involved sounded too "weirdish, and I don't like weird things!!" I'm still not sure what he was envisioning when he thought about the pinching, but it must have been pretty distressing for him to get so upset. We determined that he does not celebrate St. Patrick's Day, and that he's exempt from pinching in our house. He asked me to relay the message to the household, for his protection. Later, he quietly whispered to me, "Mom - I don't think it just sounds weirdish. It sounds scary!!"

FYI - He did wear green the next morning, and cried at first when he couldn't find anything green in his drawer (apparently he wasn't as appeased by our conversation the night before as I thought he'd been). Later in the day when I asked him if he'd had a pretty fun day after all (which he had) he assured me that it was in fact, the worst day in the universe, despite the lack of pinches.