April 21, 2006
No-ticing
My youngest son Finghín (pronounced Fin-EEN) is now two-years-old and in spite of my reluctance to appear as anything other than doting father to his doe-eyed, overwhelming cuteness, he is forcing me to use the word he may, unfortunately, hear time and again, as we all do, for the rest of his life, especially when there's something he really, really wants but society (or others) deem improper, unlawful or just down-right wrong. You know the word - No!
His recent deeds – or mis-deeds, as some have negatively labeled them – include: shouting “all-done!” and throwing food and other objects (solid and otherwise) on the floor; spitting liquids on the floor while making bubbling sounds; grabbing toys from sister and friends or even strangers; scratching; hitting; bashing-sister-over-the-head episodes; climbing on chairs, tables, and other furniture (and to which he has also taken to inscribing with pens, markers and playdough, with gusto!); de-tuning guitars; dropping coins into the steering wheel of father's car making the horn honk on right turns only; allocating water from the tub to the floor, and a host of other big-ideas formed in his angelic little devil-head.
My usual reaction to this is formally against what Dr. Jane Nelsen wrote and what two years with Carolyn Di Giuseppi, the Petaluma Queen Mother of positive discipline, told me I need to do in these situations. I usually say “No, buddy, that's not ok” and leave it at that. There are times lately though that I am taking more time because the crimes are becoming larger and therefore carry broader consequences.
I spoke at length about this with mom-friend Jane and her son Robert. She has just come out of a rough period with him telling me that there were times that any request she made of him, no mater how sweet and subtle she felt she was, was met with a roaring “NO!” That resonated with me in more ways than one. Is this what I am teaching Finghín, that is, how to say no? Is this how I want to teach him?
With that conversation in mind I went back home with him in tow and decided for the rest of that day I was not going to say no. I was instead going to find a way to say something other than no but which meant no really. The work began in earnest straight away when got home and he asked for milk. He happily says please and thank you (“Tank you papa” - that just melts me!) but his intent is anything but to drink it. Immediately he spits it on the Pergo.
“N...,” I start and clamp down on my tongue until it bleeds. I recover and say, “Finghín that milk belongs in your belly buddy. I can see that you're not ready to drink milk properly so when you're ready you let me know.” I take the milk away and pop it in the fridge and feel pretty confident that I've done a good thing. In fairness I was really just channeling Carolyn as that language and interaction is something I hear her say to her charges twice a week, even when I am there only a few minutes a day the enforcement is nice to have.
This particular day sister Hannah was having a play date with school-mate Olivia and there is calamity of a different, more sophisticated nature when these five-somethings get together and has mostly to do with taking clothes off and on and off and on again, and today, listening to Pooh stories on tape while changing clothes.
Eventually the girls came down for sustenance (frozen yogurt bars, probably) and I was distracted (only for the briefest of moments, honest) by a web design problem. It was then when I realized I did not know where Finghín had gotten off to.
I found him upstairs in Hannah's room smiling a joyful smile, having happily unwound the borrowed Pooh cassette tape, the brown ribbon looking like so much whole-wheat spaghetti on the floor. I could not contain myself as I let him have the fusillade which ended with a very charged “FINGHÍN NO!” His look was somewhere betwixt the realms of Curiosity, Awe, and Fright. He was banished downstairs to the common rooms while I gathered the tangled tape of Pooh and began the rewind job.
The job of rewinding the tape is quite pedestrian and especially in my world, in my way of being, it is too slow and without any redeeming value that I might find in working with a bit of html or css, working on that novel, or planning a shoot, or cleaning the oven, yet it did present a creative opportunity of sorts. I had worked out a way to spin the tape by placing the wooden handle of a thin painting brush into the gear and make the work faster and quite simple. The job was now simple enough to allow me to gaze out my bedroom window.
My gaze fell upon trees which seemed impossibly tall, barren of leaves, swaying gingerly in the early April breeze that was bringing just more rain and not much else. What were these trees? They were in my neighbor's yard, and by the looks of them they have been there for quite a while since they were at least five stories tall, but why hadn't I noticed them before? I continued to looked at them when I had finished rewinding the tape and suddenly felt in wonder of so many things. What kind of trees were they? Poplar? Birch? Why didn't I know? Why had I never noticed such an obvious thing before? Had I noticed them before but had forgotten?
Then it hit me that I was deeply in the realm of wonder. Holding the Pooh tape in my hand and staring at those impossible trees I felt as if I knew again, for the second time, the wonder of a child.
Finghín's deed, while ultimately problematic, offered me an opportunity to see the world differently, as he does, in a way where there is nothing right nor wrong, but that things just are what they are and I was terribly grateful to him for providing it, at least until the next clean up.
Posted by Michael at April 21, 2006 09:16 AM