You started school, and we all got the plague. You ended up with an eye infection and a nose infection, thanks to a general cold. Getting those eye drops into your eyes was absolutely awful for the first three days. Then one night, Dad wasn't done putting Miriam to bed yet, so you and I talked about it and you agreed to lay still while I put the eye drops in. It was one of those weird moments, that feels almost like a breakthrough in parent-child communications where I manage to say just the right thing and you understand it. I think most of the success came from something that I'm trying to change in how I communicate with you.
I had a conversation with your teacher in which she mentioned that the best time to teach appropriate behavior is when everything is calm. Which made perfect sense to me once I thought about it a little bit. Of course it's not the right time to discuss your behavior when you're already upset. So simple, and yet so profound. So when I realized that Dad was still going to be with Miriam when we were ready for eye drops, I didn't wait until you were already fighting me to try and get you to cooperate. Which apparently was the right decision, because it worked like a charm.
Your teacher also compared it to practicing at something until it's in your muscle memory, which also makes a lot of sense to me. I've been thinking of ways that I can program good behavior into you. I was confronted with a brilliant example of it the other day. I didn't hear something that you said, so I asked you, "What are you talking about?" to which you replied, "I'm just talking about Shaft."
What with all of the sickness, we didn't do much this past month. You did spend a couple of days in Madison with Grandma and Grandpa Lam. You came home with yet another digger--a cool little metal bobcat. We christened it the other day playing in the mud in the backyard. Then you dug a hole, plopped yourself down in it, and told me you were hatching eggs. You got yourself so dirty we had to change your pants before we went to breakfast. I call that a good morning.
Love,
Mom
You sending email:
Playing in the hole, day one:
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