Mamba Snakes

This year in Kindergarten, each student was assigned an animal to learn about and present to the class. Kate got Mamba Snakes. Together we learned that they are fast and poisonous and that they come in several colors including black and green. We learned that they lay eggs and that they will eat any small animal and that their predators are large birds, like eagles. We frequently discussed that they live in Africa - far from us.

Kate worked really, really hard to learn these facts. It was a big challenge and I was really proud of her.

Also in school, each child made a habitat and ceramic replicas of their animals. Kate made two snakes and a little cardboard home. It has a bird in the sky that they might want to escape and a bird on the ground that they might want to eat.

On Thursday night we went to a school program and after, the students took home their animals and habitats. We went out to dinner. Kate and Rachel were each had one of Kate's snakes in the restaurant. And they both broke.

First Kate broke hers. She showed me right away, but was pretty calm and when I told her we could glue it back together at home, she was perfectly happy to just play with her broken snake. She was so calm about the whole thing that no one else at the table even knew her snake was broken.

A few minutes later Rachel accidentally broke the other snake. She felt terrible and was signalling me about the problem trying not to alert Kate. When I realized what had happened, I said again that we could glue it together and I told Kate. Kate was still fine with it. Rachel apologized, and the rest of dinner continued.

We've all been in situations where we are upset about something and another person can't understand why the situation is of so much concern. And we are sometimes in situations where we are trying to understand why others are upset about a situation when we are not. It's all a matter of perspective, but knowing that doesn't make it any easier to see things from the other person's point of view.

It seems like a broken art project that you worked hard on would be an automatic upset. And, when you sister (even a sister who you love and like and admire) also breaks your project, it seems you would need to be consoled. Kate's calm response is a comfort and a reminder not to make a big deal of things. The snakes would be fixed and all would be fine. And she just trusted that that would be true.