Where's my six year old?

T is a classical music fan. It started in Kindergarten when his teacher would put on classical music during rest time and he just LOVED it! Then we shared the John Williams Star Wars CD with him. He even asked us to put that CD and the Henry Mancini Pink Panther CD on his MP3. Now, everytime we get in the car, he asks me to tune it to Classical WETA. Of course, how could you ever turn down that request? He will then tell me the story of the music we are hearing, from horses galloping, to ships sailing, to a sword fight. He imagines a story for each song.

The only problem with WETA is that sometimes some rather grim news stories come across the airwaves in between classical pieces. Last night, as we were driving home from piano lessons, I turned off the station as they started discussing death tolls in Chile. Of course, he's heard much about the earthquake in Haiti and we've discussed what we've done as a family and what his school is doing to help. So, he said, "mom, please don't turn that off, I want to listen." Is he really only six? I let him listen.

The radio discussed how Haiti had a more devastating experience than Chile even though the earthquake in Chile was much stronger. And, we talked about it for awhile as he didn't understand why that would be. How much to explain???? I tried to say that the people in Haiti are very poor (like in Timor), their buildings were built as cheaply as possible, that their government just doesn't work for the people very well, and that we need to do more than just send money, we need to help them build a functioning government and help make sure the money to properly rebuild their buildings and schools goes where it needs to go. I went on to say how difficult this is to do without them feeling like we are treating them like babies (trying to figure out the best way to put it) as nobody likes to be treated like a baby. He then proceeds to tell me all about the "Slave One" ship he is building with Legos and how he wants to find the Lego mini-figures that go with the ship. Ah, the world of Star Wars Legos. There's my six year old.