Bitty and the Boy

In his almost 5 year old innocence, he was pretending -- it seems he pretends more than he doesn't. This morning he pretended that he was fat. Why? I don't know. While he was walking around pretending to be fat, he came up to me and said, "Not that it matters, but you are a little fat, aren't you? I love you anyway, but you ARE a LITTLE fat, right? I still love you. But you ARE fat, right?" I just started to cry. I couldn't help myself. There was no reasoning with my heart. I couldn't say no -- because I am overweight. I was just so sad for his innocence lost. It startled me. Not three months ago, he looked at me and said, "Mommy, you are not fat. You are beautiful." This happened as we were having a conversation about a little girl at school who is heavier. He called her fat as a descriptor for me to know which little girl she was. He said it as truthfully as when he said she had brown hair and was "really nice." I told him that it hurts people's feelings when they are called things like fat. I told him of the times that I was called fat when I was a little girl and how it had hurt my feelings. How did things change so quickly?