I went in to work to help a co-worker figure out a problem and to do some fancy shopping. There was this very very cute little guy wandering around and laughing and playing and flirting and making lots of noise and talking non-stop. My co-worker, Bubbles, she was enjoying his company for a while.
The little guy was hopping around and Bubbles was saying, "tu nombre? tu nombre?" Your name? Your name? He thought it was incredibly funny. He started saying, in a voice that was as low as he could make it, "My name..." as if he would soon tell us his name.
He never told us. So I called him "MyName". That also made him laugh.
But then Bubbles started to try to understand and solve the problem , so that she could solve it when I wasn't around.
He was right next to her, a spastic bundle of very cute energy. Eventually, though, Bubbles had endured enough of his busy, small-person'd-ness; she got annoyed. She's a therapist, though, so she has unusual ways of saying things. "Hon, I can't talk right now. I need to focus now. I need to concentrate." He said, "What's focus?"
Then she tried, "I'm really busy. What's your mother doing?" Apparently he considered finding out to be unexciting.
Finally she said, "Could you not talk for a while? It's not that I don't like you, because I do, I just need you to not talk."
He stopped talking. I sat, not talking, wondering what the implications of connecting talking to acceptance. Could it be that just asking for him to not talk would be okay? Say, "Hey, can you not talk for a while? I'm thinking." Wouldn't he understand that? But then saying, "Can you not talk? I still like you though." Does it imply that when I usually ask for silence the person I'm asking is disliked? I'm a bit concerned about that. Yes, indeed, that's not what I want our new generation of babies to learn.
I'm not the therapist, though. And when I babysit and the child cries because he or she misses mom and dad, I won't "nurture" the child. I'll comfort, entertain, soothe, amuse, hug the child, but nurture? That's just weird. And since I'm not a therapist, perhaps it's okay that I'm thoroughly puzzled by her saying she still likes him. I do think, however, that she's dealing with her own discomfort with disciplining.
But I love Bubbles because she knows it's all weird. When she was getting frustrated with MyName, she continued working and said to him, "Could you please not be five right now?"
He had a huge smile on his face. She started laughing. MyName looked at me and said, "Not be five!" I asked how old he was. He said, "Five!"
He and his mom left soon after that. But I keep hearing in my head, "Could you please not be five?" And little tiny laughter.
Posted by dotty at January 16, 2005 11:55 PM