Drawings

Joel asked me to draw what he was drawing (while he was drawing it). This is one of the set of things we drew at the same time. I really appreciated this way of getting to be with him and to see how these drawings unfold. I've seen lots that look like this only after he's already all done. So, it was neat to get to see oh this is how these things come about.

I'm looking forward to doing this more with Joel. It brought about similar qualities as some art exercises to do that I wrote some notes about here:
http://e-a-s-e.blogspot.com/2015/12/deliberately-doing-activity-that-will.html

Joel's asleep right now, so I can't ask him to tell me about this drawing that my parents just emailed me. We'll see if I end up getting around to updating this blogpost with thoughts on this drawing after I get to talk to Joel about it. :)

Pictures for Mother's Day

Here are some photos that Damena Karoly from Hearth in the Hills Day Care sent me for Mother's Day. The top one was one that Joel'd told me a story about that day about how the baby didn't cry while he was feeding him. I learned from Damena that he initiated the activity. I've learned other things from the photos that she sends.  Like that he won't freeze even when I'm delinquent about packing his bag because they suit him up with spare hats and mittens when his can't be found. :)  It's a helpful lesson for me in how the world won't end if I'm not hypervigilant and that I can relax more instead.

Making a rainbow

After Joel spontaneously told me that he was making a rainbow, it was very satisfying to be able to capture him saying so again in the same sweet voice by asking him to tell me again what he was doing in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHU6ONKx1zs

Don't press my buttons

Not surprisingly, Joel is interested in interacting with computers...which causes me to fear for the damage he might deal to them...  So, it's great that he recently came up with a computer that doesn't cause that kind of fear in me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJt4KyYIo8Q

Mommy, can I talk to you?

Today, for the first time, Joel said to me:  Mommy, can I talk to you?  He then, again for the first time, told me a story. 

(I've recently been able to prompt him with "Then what happened" over and over again to lead him to telling me something like a story, but this was the first time that it was a monologue.)

He said he went somewhere and saw a few things...I think there was a cow...and then he said I saw a rooster...and it bit me!  It was a short sequence of things he told me.  So, I'm surprised I can't remember more of it, and I wish I could.

The feel of the story was very similar to the one he's been having me repeat over and over again.  I was finding that I could keep him from getting into something I didn't want him to by telling him about some fairly mundane things that happened to me that day...and he'd look at me very intently and become very engaged in what I was saying...  So, one day, I told him this story.  I was walking Quartz...and I saw that coming behind us, there was another dog.  So, I crossed the street.  But, Quartz got scared anyway.  So, I pulled him towards Nancy's house...and Nancy's cat felt trapped...and it went "hiss."

So, "Mommy, were you walking Quartz?" is an oft heard question these days, and it's his way of requesting the telling of this story.

Thoughts about 塞翁失馬 (Sai weng shi ma)

Just had an interesting discussion with my brother about the story of the man that lost his horse, 塞翁失馬 (Sai weng shi ma). If you don't know the story, click here to see several different versions of this story.  Basically, it's about having things that happen that seem terrible or seem great and being able to say "Who knows."

I was telling him about a situation where I was dismayed with myself for being late to an event (which seemed terrible) and then, at the end of the event, getting to have a particularly satisfying conversation with a friend (which seemed great).  I was telling him about how that led to thoughts like "Well then how do you have any basis for learning and decision-making?"  More on that in a moment. At one point in our conversation, my brother pointed out that there was a part that wasn't getting addressed in what I'd been discussing, and that was that I was feeling really disappointed about being late and that there were reasons and feelings behind being disappointed.

My response to this was to say, yeah, sometimes it does seem like what I'm doing is using 塞翁失馬 to tell myself not to feel my feelings, and that doesn't seem like something I want to do.

Okay, so now back to the thoughts about learning and decision-making. So, saying could've, should've, would've is something I do often, and 塞翁失馬 can help me let go of doing that. But, I then took things to an extreme, which led to thinking:  What about learning from what happened and making subsequent changes in your behavior?  Is this at odds with 塞翁失馬?

Brian's take on this was that it's not about thinking of decision-making as arbitrary.  This led me to thinking that perhaps 塞翁失馬 isn't just about not evaluating outcomes (e.g., losing the horse) but also about not being so outcome-oriented.  It can serve as a reminder that, no, I don’t have that much control over outcomes, but what I do have more influence on is my process.  Process over product is how my friend put it the other day. Take care of the process and let the outcomes/products/results be however they turn out.

As a result, I'm finding it helpful to think of 塞翁失馬 as helping me let go of all the could've, should've, would've, and all the if only this and if only that...and all the thoughts about things that are all in the past...and all the feeling a deluded sense of control...such that, of course, I'd be able to prevent the loss of a horse, and obviously that'd be a good thing.

Perhaps if 塞翁失馬 can get me to let go of this kind of ruminating, then that opens up the possibility of sitting with the uncomfortable feelings I'm having about things not going my way.  So, instead of using 塞翁失馬 to deny my feelings (as I mentioned above as something I've been doing), I can use it to help me hold the space for sitting with my feelings.

What's in the bag?

Watch this video to find out!  Want more?  Here is a prequel that you can watch, too.

Squirrels should eat slowly, too

Peter likes to feed squirrels on the window sill next to our kitchen table.  So, we get to do a lot of great close up squirrel watching.  Man man chi (eat slowly) is something that my mom often says to Joel, and that's what Joel had to say to a squirrel who was eating squash seeds the other day.

Tofu that grows on trees

One fun thing that we've been pantomiming is collecting food from trees and eating it.  We have some wallpaper in our entryway with a tree pattern on it.  Here's a picture from when Joel was a newborn that has the wallpaper in it:

We started out by picking berries off the trees.  After picking a few berries and eating them, Joel suggested that we also pick tofu off the trees.  We already suspected that tofu was a big favorite with Joel, and this confirmed it for me.

Writing this has made me realize that before all the recent pantomiming we've just discovered we can do, we already were pantomiming taking baths with laundry baskets.  The first time I did this was with a doll.  After doing all the things that I could think of that Joel did in the bath, Joel made me realize that I'd left out an important activity.  He put the doll's face down to the level of the pretend water to pantomime having it drink the bath water.  No bath is complete without drinking bath water for Joel!

Water! Water! So much!

We woke up the other day to find snow on the ground for the first time this season. Joel responded by pointing out the window excitedly and saying "Water! Water! Hao duo! (So much!)" He also pointed to different spots and counted 1, 2, 3, as he often does after saying hao duo.

How on earth did he know that snow was made of water?!?!?

We went outside to play with it. I was excited to make snowballs for him, but then realized that he didn't necessarily think that much of it. So, we have a ball to play with now, that's not that impressive to him. It reminds me of being excited to take him to a petting farm because I had been so impressed when I visited a farm as an adult with how similar the way my uncle imitates them is to the real sound. Well, we've been making that sound while pointing to pictures of roosters ever since Joel was born. So, he again wasn't at all impressed like I was hoping he would be. Of course, that's what he expected to hear when he saw one in person, no big deal.

There was just enough snow to make a little teeny snowman for him, that was maybe 6 inches tall. Up until that point, I hadn't been sure whether he'd been saying snowman or shang mian (on top). But once I made the snowman, he yelled "Snowman!" and ran over and smashed it, so I knew that the sound he'd been making was indeed snowman.

Before the day was done, there was no more snow. But, Joel was still talking about making snowmen. So, I pantomimed making one, which we then did over and over again because he found it so engaging.

This has opened up a whole new world for us of pantomiming doing things instead of actually doing them. Which is fabulous, because it even satisfies his desire to look at things on my computer. I just make a laptop out of my hands (one for the screen, and one for the keyboard), and I point out imaginary pictures of things that he likes to see.

I've been anticipating the challenges of having a two year old with much trepidation. Maybe this new world of pantomiming might make this all seem less terrifying to me. I sure hope so...although, often the new tricks only work while they're still novel...