Taking the Scenic Route

All. day. long., Zane has been asking for an ice cream cone.  He was obsessed.  We let him have one earlier in the day, but we told him no more ice cream today about, oh, a million times or so.  (only to have him ask again about 30 seconds later).  By the afternoon Zach was getting really frustrated and went on a bit of a rant…”NO, N-O, NO more ice cream.  Don’t ask again.  NO.  N-O.  No more ice cream today at all.”  Zane finally got it, but started crying, really hard.  He came to me, crying, and crawled onto my lap.  I said “that wasn’t what you wanted to hear” and “I know you want ice cream, but not today”, ect.  Zane, after hugging me a bit, sat up, looked at me and said “I sad”.  I was stunned. It is the absolute first time he has ever verbalized a feeling.  Totally unprompted too.  AND he said “I” instead of “Zane”.  In stunned silence, I pulled him to me to hug him again while I tried to gather myself (because clapping and jumping up and down would have been a slight bit inappropriate) and reiterated what he said “I know you’re sad, I’m sorry, it is hard to be sad”…and couldn’t stop myself…”but that was a really good job of using your words”.  Probably NOT what he wanted to hear.