Axel and I are both very emotional. He's one, so many, many things he encounters daily are mildly traumatic. I'm pregnant, so I tear up during bad movies and any baby-oriented commercial.
Last night, I stopped on a classic movie called Stick It. I don't mean classic in the Casablanca/It's a Wonderful Life sense. It's classic in the tween girl/slumber party sense. If I were a thirteen-year-old gymnast, I'd probably keep this movie in heavy rotation, along with all the High School Musicals, that traveling pants movie, Grease, and Pump Up the Volume. I caught the last fifteen minutes of Stick It, in which the main character has some sort of profound voice over about wishing that her parents were still married, things were perfect, etc., etc., ending with the thought that she wants someone to say that they're proud of her. And then, guess what her coach says? Yup. And guess who started crying?
Yup. It was very, very embarassing. Luckily, I was alone. Too bad, because I think the movie would've been better with a generous helping of chocolate covered Oreos followed by some serious rounds of Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.
And then, then, I saw this Pampers commercial, full of adorable sleeping babies with their perfect little bow-shaped mouths, snoring. It ends with a shot of the globe and the words Peace on Earth. Sob. If you're pregnant and you can watch that one without shedding a tear, you're a far stronger woman than me. Pampers, you owe me a case of Kleenex.
Axel, on the other hand, is brought to tears not by cheesy things from movies, but by janitors, naps (anything related to them, from needing one to taking one to waking up from one), high chairs, socks, getting himself stuck underneath furniture, and adults refusing to give him knives/glasses/pots of boiling water/pepper grinders/ovens/anything dangerous.
(Totally unrelated picture above taken in happier times while Axel shot down a slide. I can't bring myself to take pictures of him while he's sobbing.)
On Saturday morning, we were at a community event at a local high school. The friendly janitor, sporting overalls and striped elbow-length gloves, a set of jangling keys at his waist, joked with us. Then, he made one of those wide open eyes/open mouth excited faces at Axel. Axel screamed and sobbed in terror. Since sociable Axel's training to be Fun Director on a cruise and has taken to waving and saying "Hi" to everyone from strangers in the grocery store to holiday light-covered trees (inanimate objects need a little love, too), this was a little surprising. Each time the janitor walked by, his keys announced his presence, and Axel started to cry again. I'm not sure what it was about the janitor that made him cry - maybe he didn't like the smell of bleach, or thought it was a little ostentatious, the way the janitor flaunted those keys, since Axel never gets to nibble on mine.
Since I can't always seem to find a reason for my tears, set off by the Lifetime network or the sight of naseau-inducing tiramisu or nothing at all, I guess I shouldn't expect to make sense out of a one year old's crying. We're both sobbing up a storm, without much of a reason.
