June 21, 2004 - Monday
We stayed at the beach cottage an extra day and this morning I took the boys for a walk to the train track so their mother could finish cleaning the house. There were no trains coming, although we did see a freight train in the distant slowly moving off the siding and out of sight, likely having been waiting there for a commuter train to have passed by. I don't think that seeing that train had anything to do with it, but as we approached the tracks Jeremy got very upset. He didn't like that we were so close to the tracks and got particularly upset when Harry ventured close enough to touch the tracks. While his complaints were mostly inarticulate, it was clear that Jeremy was worried that his older brother would get hit by a train. He's done this before with Harry being near train tracks, playing in the ocean surf, stepping off the curb in a parking lot (Jeremy is worried about Harry, but I still have enormous confidence in Harry's judgment in parking lots), or stepping off our driveway into the road.

It's quite charming that Jeremy would be so concerned about his brother and maybe it's enough to leave it at that. Jeremy is, however, at that stage of life when he's started to realize that bad things can happen and tends to overreact to a lot of things, including loud noises, and maybe a lot of this overt awareness and concern will pass. Still, it's hard not to be touched by Jeremy's sometimes delicate soul.


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