Thursday, November 20, 2008

"Self stim"

When I went to my very first mommy & me classes with C two years ago, the woman in charge (not the instructor, who seemed nice and perfectly able, but her supervisor, whose own kids were over 20 and apparently perfect, and who never let the instructor contribute anything) scolded me for not giving C the chance to learn "self stim." I had to suppress a giggle. I resented every piece of "advice" that woman spewed (including, when I catalogued the severity of his colic, "You should try singing to him." Duh!), and stopped going altogether after a few meetings. But, to be fair, C never did get the self stim thing down.

G, on the other hand, is remarkably capable of entertaining himself for long periods of time; 20-minute chunks sometimes. He is curious, good-natured, and observant. It is wonderful. He will press buttons on music boxes, bang on a xylophone, and push cars around, with a smile. What I don't know is whether this is because we ignore him a little more than we did C (inevitably, as we only have finite attention resources now shared between the two), or whether it is an inherent personality trait, to be a little more self-sufficient that way.

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