The other night I woke from a sound sleep to my son, crying… it was a little after 3am. I went into the kid’s room and he was sitting up in his crib, in tears, asking, “Where is my dinosaur shirt?”

Huh?

“What dinosaur shirt?” I asked, already sensing it was a silly question.
Earlier that day we had received a big box of clothes, hand-me-downs all for his sister. He had asked if he could have several of the items as I held up pink flowered shirts and sparkly purple dresses… so I had started to explain that they were meant for girls and then, realizing I was careening toward gender stereotypes I didn’t want to necessarily shove onto my son at age two, I ended up saying that of course he could have some, as I put the box away.

Does he want to wear pink flowers? Perhaps… but when he refused to wear pants I did ask if he would prefer a dress and he said no. I wasn’t being sarcastic when I asked I was genuinely interested to hear his response… I saw the 20/20 episode on transgendered kids – if he feels strongly about pinks and purples he can go there, but it wasn’t about that. He just wanted to get some stuff too.

So as he sobbed over what I assume was a dream about his dinosaur shirt (which was in the washer, wet) I grabbed a sweater with dinosaurs on it and asked him if it would do. He pointed to a stegosaurus appliqué and exclaimed, “Yes, Mommy yes!!”
So I put the sweater on over his PJs and tucked him in, contented.

About an hour later, I woke to the sound of my daughter crying. I went into the room and she was holding up her hand, crying saying, “My thumb is broken.”

This one had me stuck for a moment. I looked at the thumb, asked her to move it and she wiggled it a bit, I kissed it, but still she was saying something about it not being right. She seemed so scared and upset that I squinted harder in the night light glow and tried to straighten it. It would not straighten. The top of her thumb had somehow popped out of joint!

Another minute went by as I got over my horror and realized how terrifying that must be to her. I held her hand in one hand and her thumb in my other and slowly but firmly pulled the thumb apart a bit and ‘pop’, the bone went back to its spot in the joint. She stopped crying and after inspecting it said happily, “Thank you Mommy, you fixed it!”