"You broke my dreams," he said.

Before bed, he comes into the living room and softly says to me:

"When you yelled at me earlier, you broke my dreams. Now I'll never get to dream what I wanted."

Trying not to feel guilty about having yelled at him, I answered, "But you weren't sleeping when I yelled at you."

Joshua replied, "I know. My dreams were trying to get started and now they're broken and now I'll have bad dreams tonight instead."

I don't recall what I said to that. Something reassuring, probably. Something that neither of us really believed, but it was good enough for him to go bed after the standard hug and kiss.

He can be such a wild mess sometimes that I can forget how sensitive a little guy can be. His sister has the market cornered on sensitivity and I'll have to remember to look extra hard for those times when he might need a little more love and attention.