Love, Love, Love

Day 33 - A picture of you doing something you love.

I love, absolutely, positutely (yes that's a word!), LOVE cuddling with my son.  On this day in particular Colbert was a total grump.  I knew once I could get him to hold still and calm down he'd pass out.  He fought falling asleep real hard.  When he gets real upset he covers his face with his hands, I think mostly because he doesn't want to be upset but hasn't learned how to control that part of him so he tries to physically hide it.  Sure enough it wasn't long before his breathing returned to normal and his body began to relax.  I love observing and assessing why he, and all children, do the things that they do.  I've worked very hard to improve my observational skills.  What helps most with observing children is that I know what a typical textbook child looks like, and I have interacted with many many children of varying ages.  I know specifically that as Colbert is having a meltdown it is because he's tired, partially because I know my kid, but also because I know when children are tired they lose control of that frontal cortex of their brain, it simply shuts off and they struggle to regain that control.  The funny thing is that in order to regain control, you have to let go of your control completely.  When Colbert gets mad I have him stomp his feet, this releases more of that pent up energy and allows him to go back to being in control.  I love children and the way their brains work.  I love being able to predict their behaviors.  I am also fascinated by children who are either gifted or have developmental delays, because they don't fit into the textbook child, they're more like a puzzle that I get to solve by filling in the blanks.  It's a difficult fascination to explain, for now I think that's the best way I can describe it.