Baba's Mommy's box.

Noah loves playing with this box drum that my mother made for me when I was a child. However he started banging really hard on it and I thought he was going to break it. This led to a discussion about why this box was special and who made it. I.e. Baba's mommy made this. Where is Baba's mommy? Baba's mommy died. Why? Cancer. Why do you get cancer? How do you die? But I don't want Baba's mommy to be die. etc.

It's interesting that Noah can miss someone that he has never met. And mourn the loss of someone who he never had and never knew in the first place. But he does. and also he has been asking me a ton of questions about this randomly. Like we are walking down the street trying to get to school and Noah asks, "Baba why did Baba's mommy get cancer and die?"

I actually sort of tried to explain what cancer was. A disease. "Like germs?" Not really. Your cells start growing in a way that's not good...... uhhhh.. you get a tumor and that spreads...ummm...
Well I suppose we could look it up on Wikipedia or something, but then it seems kind of morbid. Ironically this last Sunday they had a piece of giving fruit flies cancer tumors (the same one as in the human patient you are treating) and then throwing every type of drug at it and seeing what works We had been watching that but Noah tunes out that type of programming. Whereas PBS kids really holds his attention.
He remembers all these stories I tell him with alarming detail. I have another one that he pulled out of nowhere this morning when we were brushing teeth. But I guess I'll leave that for another entry.