Zane is naturally and strongly empathetic. He often hugs and tells his little brother and all of us how much he loves us. So you might guess he's also very protective.
When reading stories and watching movies, Zane is quick to analyze and report dangerous or distorted ideas. He does it all the time, sometimes to be sarcastic and other times with full seriousness, but I was thinking about it more the other night when reading Blueberries for Sal. It has been a while since reading some books that are always around, so we recently decided to dig back into our upstairs basket full of childhood books.
As we were reading, Zane kept calling out instances that would not be deemed okay parenting by today's worldly ideas and commands. And like with most times he does this, I had to explain why it might be okay in some circumstances and maybe not okay in others.
While reading about Sal just eating the blueberries in the field, Zane interrupted the story to announce: "They didn't wash the blueberries first?!"
And as Sal's mother moved along and away to pick her own blueberries for canning, Zane exclaimed "I can't believe the mom would just leave a baby . . . toddler alone like that!"
Zane wasn't trying to be funny, although I chuckled as discreetly as I could.
