January 30, 2006 - Monday
When is a child old enough to be left alone in a house? I've wondered about that many times before. I do know that the school buses won't let kindergartners off the bus if no parent is there to meet them, but they will, if I understand correctly, let a first grader off by him/herself. That suggests that Harry is getting pretty close. Today, with Harry's temperature still well over 100, it seemed to me that Harry would probably be better off not having to get dressed, go in the car to Jeremy's babysitter's house, probably get out of the car while we dropped Jeremy off (although that really isn't that necessary in Mary's driveway), and come home again. The round trip is no more than 10 minutes and it really seemed like Harry would be just fine, so I offered to let him stay at home. I told him I'd put on some cartoons and even put my cell phone number in the phone so he only had to press redial if something happened. He didn't want to stay. He didn't want to be left alone, not even with the temptation of cartoons.

The funny thing is that I'm not sure how I feel about that. Harry has never been alone before in his whole life, of course, and I guess it's a little scary. On the other hand, I don't think it would phase Jeremy at all and I can't remember I time in my life (although perhaps there was when I was very young and I just don't remember) that I wasn't quite comfortable being by myself. I suppose it's fine that Harry prefers companionship, but I certainly don't want him to be scared by being alone.


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