Don't say good-bye

Jordan has reached a season where he hates to see visits and playdates end. I hoped a few weeks ago that the phase would pass quickly, but it's getting worse. A fun afternoon will turn into a begging, crying mess, because he doesn't know what to do with the strong feelings of affection he has. When the objects of that affection leave, he breaks down.

I remember having those same feelings as a child. Living "miles from nowhere," as we did, visits from anyone were rare. When those folks would leave, it was devastating to me. I felt like nobody loved me, like I was totally alone. Nothing or nobody could make me feel better. Eventually, of course, I came out of it.

My goal now is to figure out positive ways to help Jordan handle the feelings, to know that they're normal. My accepting his feelings won't take away the hurt, of course, so something else has to enter the equation. One to work on.

A Christmas thought

Another Christmas in the books, and I've had a revelation of sorts. It came in two parts. One was earlier in the month while doing Bible study with my son in his Heroes Bible, in which a page featured the celebration of Hannuka. Or Hanukka. Or maybe it's Haunaka, or Hannakka. Looks like a Hawaiian word.

Jordan was engrossed in one particular aspect of the celebration. Can you guess what it was? That's right. Eight days of presents.

"Why don't we celebrate Hannuka?" he asked.

Besides the fact that it's a Jewish holiday, there is no fabulous excuse. It's not like we have to slaughter a goat or build a plywood tent in the yard. Maybe the fact that it's always on different dates. Yeah.

The second part of the revelation came with the Christmas morning opening of Jordan's presents, of which there were far too many. He had them all open in an hour and then spent the rest of the morning trying to play with every one of them. Too much for a six year old. Shoot. Too much for me.

And here's the second part of the second part of the revelation: some toys aren't what they're cracked up to be, and that's very disappointing to a kid who dreams of the perfect toy doing everything it claims to do on the box or the commercial. That's a huge downer, and if it happens more than once, well, you paint the picture.

So...my thought to open a present a day, maybe along with some study of Hannuka, leading up to Christmas.

You're saying, nine presents? That's the way it is for an only child sometimes, and every present doesn't have to be wallet-buster. Could start out with the easy ones, like a pencil, leading up to the new Beamer on the ninth day.

Much easier on the child, as long as the premise is explained. Don't let that be a surprise: "Oh yes, Johnny, that's the only present you can open today."

Not a good idea.

Egg and paper disaster

The afternoon had been progressing well. The boy was drawing while I worked, PBS cartoons playing in the background.

"I'm thirsty," said the boy.

I went to the kitchen and decided to heat up a last boiled egg. I set it in the microwave for 30 seconds and poured the boy some drink. Walking it to the table where he sat, I noted the sunniness of the outside. A nice day, despite the freezing temperatures.

"Here you go," I said, handing Jordan the small glass.

"Thanks." He took a small gulp and set it down on the table beside his drawing of an icebreaker, icebergs, and a killer whale. Flavored water splashed a quarter teaspoon or so onto the paper. The day changed.

A stranger would have thought I'd kicked the baby or something the way he cried. His drawing was destroyed, he thought, no matter that there was only a tiny wet spot on it. I stood looking at him, as tears literally streamed from his eyes.

Then something popped and exploded in the kitchen. Another explosion seconds later. The egg. It had lasted about 24 seconds, bless its little albumen, but it couldn't take it any longer. At 1,000 watts, 30 seconds of full microwave excitement was too much.

I looked at the microwave steaming. I looked at the boy heaving.

This was a chance to try out my new skills of Talking So Kids Will Listen. What would two Jewish mothers do?

First I bit my tongue. I wanted to say, "Don't worry about it. It's just a spill. You can make another drawing." This could have negated his feelings, making him think that his feelings were not important to me and that instead he should listen to me and accept my assessment of his feelings.

Instead, I empathized with him. I got a towel and carefully dabbed it onto the drawing. I think I said something like, "Let's see if it dries okay. It didn't look too bad."

He didn't believe me, though, and continued sobbing.

Into the kitchen I went. The microwave was covered inside with boiled egg mess. The explosion had scattered the remains evenly throughout the interior. Ugly.

"Did you ever see a boiled egg explosion?" I asked Jordan.

That stopped the sobbing for a bit, and he came in to look, suitably impressed by the magnitude of my mess.

"I feel pretty bad about that, you know," I said, truthfully. "I was going to share that egg with you, but instead it exploded and now I'm going to have to spend a lot of time cleaning out the inside of the microwave."

He nodded agreeably, still sobbing a bit about his own disaster.

We returned to his drawing. It was almost dry. I demonstrated over the sink how the liquid had come out of the cup when he'd set it down. That elicited a smile.

Long story shortened, the drawing survived, he finished coloring it, and we both learned lessons. I learned not to nuke a boiled egg for more than 20 seconds, and he learned not to set drinks down near important documents.

Too much taste

Jordan asked me one day how taste buds worked. I could barely remember the four (now there's five, I read somewhere) tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty. We found a few pages on the WWW on the subject and soon found out what parts of the tongue taste what taste, and we found out something I didn't know.

Taste buds are not only on the tongue; they're also on the cheeks and the roof of the mouth. And guess what? As we get older, the ones on the cheeks and palate begin to disappear. Maybe the tongue ones do, too, getting old and tired of all that food.

What that means is that kids get a stronger version of tastes than adults do. When I put as much garlic as I like on my food, Jordan gets way too much. That tells me one reason why he (I was the same way as a child) prefers plainer food, probably the main reason. He likes tastes of new things, once he gets used to them, but it's the getting used to that takes the time.

So, besides having more layers in their memories being laid down every day, kids also have a stronger sense of taste than adults do. The ability to retain that depth of experience as we get older would be a great thing. I wonder if we'd use up all our memory, though? Like a computer saving every digital photo in 10 megapixel format.

Layers of memories

It's on some online site, probably LiveScience.com, where scientists have figured out a couple of things that have often crossed my questioning mind: Why does time go slower for children than for adults? And why do kids find some things distasteful that we feel is delicious?

I once posited that it was due to the time a child had been in the world that made each chunk of a day seem like a bigger deal. In other words, one day to a five-day-old child is one-fifth of his life, while that same one day to a five-year-old child is a much tinier portion. Linear math doesn't account for the vast differences in space-time feeling, though.

Turns out that when we make new memories, usually as a child, we engage a layer of the brain in making those memories not normally used for that. Why? Scientists theorize that the extra memories are to help the brain remember better. Makes sense.

So whenever Junior remembers playing in the yard yesterday, he has many times more folds of memories, more levels of the day to remember because adults don't bother to remember so much about it, having seen it for a lifetime.

Not so curiously, the phenomenon of time slowing down in an accident is also a function of this extra layering of memories. Or so say the researchers.

What about the taste thing? It'll have to wait till tomorrow.

Jordan's Sixth

The boy turned six years old on Monday, a wonderful time for him. We are blessed to have a son who is almost always in a good mood, ready for fun, ready for whatever, except bed, bath, and brushing his teeth, or anything that stops him from doing what he wants to do at the moment.

We had a small party at the house for him on Saturday. Two of his soccer mates came, along with some of their brothers and sisters, so it was a good crowd for him. Not too big, not too little. The party was planned for 1 p.m., so at 12:59, when no one had yet arrived, Jordan began to wonder why. At 1:02, he was upside down with anxiety. "Where is everyone?"

He saw the first group arrive and drive around the corner and park, and from then through the rest of the day, he didn't stop being Jordan, the birthday boy, which meant that everyone had to do whatever he wanted.

The opening of gifts was followed by a special "follow the clues" treasure hunt devised by Jordan's mom that turned out to be one of the highlights of the day. She'd hidden six clues around the house, and the big item that Jordan had been hinting begging for was in the final destination. Jordan had such a good time following the clues, that now he wants everything to be a treasure hunt, "even my Nutragrain bars," those little packaged bits of grain and sugar that are breakfast and snack staples at the house.

Besides the great party, I'd email-blasted my brothers requesting cards from everyone and their children and whoever for Jordan, because our family is not big on sending cards for any reason. The ploy worked and now the plan is for the next few days of school to include writing thank-you cards this week.