Thursday – A Cranky, Solitary Owlet
Dec. 18th, 2008 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
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"Our son had a very bad, horrible, no good day today," my husband told me on the phone. I was driving home from work, and it was his day to pick up our 4 year old from daycare.
I groaned. "Oh, no. How many people got bit?"
"Five attempts, no successes."
This was good news. A couple weeks ago, there was one day when there were 4 successful bites and one near miss. His teachers' reflexes must be getting faster.
"He was a little terror all day long, and had a 5-minute meltdown on the playground," Jeff continued.
"Did you explain to them about this morning…?"
"I did, and Gemetha understood."
"We'll have to get him to bed early tonight."
"Or at least try. I don't think he'll give us too much trouble, though. He cuddled right into me when I picked him up, and he was as limp as a rag doll."
"Poor little guy," I said.
I felt guilty, and so did Jeff. Each of us contributed DNA to create the problem. The circadian rhythm issue is mostly from me; I passed along my weird nocturnal nature onto my baby. Jeff is also nocturnal, and it should have stood to reason with us that when two owls mate they are not going to produce a baby lark. It doesn't matter if you put my son to be at 8 o'clock, he won't go to sleep. Waiting until 9 won't help much, either. By 10, there is a chance he might nod off.
I had one of his teachers smugly tell me, "Put him to be early. My kids are in bed by 8 each night, and I don't have any trouble with them." If my kid were her kid, she would. I know where my son is coming from: I was like that as a little kid.
When I was 5, I believed that I alone did not sleep. Every night, I sat in my bed playing with my dolls by the dim light of my nightlight. My parents had me in bed by a reasonable hour each night, but I was wide awake for hours. Every night I listened as the rest of the household wound down. I listened to my parents voices in the room below me, murmuring before they drifted off. I listed to the silence after everyone else was off to the land of nod. The rule was that I had to stay in my bed, but I was allowed to have my dolls with me. When I got lonely, I lined them all up against the wall (I must have had a dozen) and played with them for company. After awhile I would close my eyes, and then open them again when my mother came in the room. Since I never remembered falling asleep or was conscience of waking up, I assumed I didn't sleep.
A year ago, my son began doing this same thing. There is nothing wrong with him; his natural rhythm is just out of sync with the rest of the world.
Both Jeff's and my own DNA makes our son an introvert. He will play with other children, but only for so long before he isolates himself. Carl Jung described an introvert as a person who needs solitude to energize him or herself. An introvert doesn't necessarily dislike people, but socializing drains him and he must step away to re-center himself from time to time. This is hard to do in a daycare environment. When you are 4 years old, the best way to get people to leave you alone, after you have told them to go away and they don't listen, is to bite them. Do this, and steer clear of you. Works every time.
I've watch my son play by himself, and listened to the running dialogs he makes up between his toys. He weaves stories and narratives out of thin air, and he seems to find other children a distraction. I've seen him initiate play with other kids, but he has to be in the mood. Often, he isn't.
"Why did you bite him?" I will ask.
"He was bothering me," is usually the reply.
An introvert who is unable to isolate himself gets cranky. Add sleep deprivation on top of this, and you have a very volatile individual on your hands.
Yesterday morning was a bad one. My son could not get to sleep the night before, and Jeff says he was up past midnight. When I tried to wake him up to go to daycare, he began to cry.
"Stop! I'm trying to sleep!" he whimpered. When I got him dressed anyway, he wailed. He wailed on the way to school. He wailed when I dropped him off. Apparently, his mood never improved until Jeff picked him up. By then, he was acting punch drunk and silly, but he was happy to be with his father and wasn't irritable.
This morning, Jeff was home and we let our little boy sleep a couple of extra hours. I expect his day has gone a lot smoother than yesterday.
It's not easy, being an owl in a lark world, or being an introvert in a world of extroverts (who outnumber us 3 to 1). When he's well rested and well centered, people tell me my son is a delight, and I can vouch that he is. He's bright, he's funny, and he's sweet. On the other hand, when he's physically tired and emotionally drained he's a different (and much scarier) child. His head doesn't spin and he doesn't projectile vomit pea soup, but otherwise he's every bit as unpleasant as any demon-possessed person at these times.
I wish I know how to help him. I wish I knew how to make him fall asleep when he is not sleepy, and could let him sleep when he is. I wish I could explain to him how to nicely tell other people that he needs to be by himself instead of attacking them. Then again, we're up the same tree, my husband, our little man and me. We're a family of owls who have no way to explain ourselves to the larks. All we can say to them is "Hoooooo!" and hope they understand what we mean.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
"Our son had a very bad, horrible, no good day today," my husband told me on the phone. I was driving home from work, and it was his day to pick up our 4 year old from daycare.
I groaned. "Oh, no. How many people got bit?"
"Five attempts, no successes."
This was good news. A couple weeks ago, there was one day when there were 4 successful bites and one near miss. His teachers' reflexes must be getting faster.
"He was a little terror all day long, and had a 5-minute meltdown on the playground," Jeff continued.
"Did you explain to them about this morning…?"
"I did, and Gemetha understood."
"We'll have to get him to bed early tonight."
"Or at least try. I don't think he'll give us too much trouble, though. He cuddled right into me when I picked him up, and he was as limp as a rag doll."
"Poor little guy," I said.
I felt guilty, and so did Jeff. Each of us contributed DNA to create the problem. The circadian rhythm issue is mostly from me; I passed along my weird nocturnal nature onto my baby. Jeff is also nocturnal, and it should have stood to reason with us that when two owls mate they are not going to produce a baby lark. It doesn't matter if you put my son to be at 8 o'clock, he won't go to sleep. Waiting until 9 won't help much, either. By 10, there is a chance he might nod off.
I had one of his teachers smugly tell me, "Put him to be early. My kids are in bed by 8 each night, and I don't have any trouble with them." If my kid were her kid, she would. I know where my son is coming from: I was like that as a little kid.
When I was 5, I believed that I alone did not sleep. Every night, I sat in my bed playing with my dolls by the dim light of my nightlight. My parents had me in bed by a reasonable hour each night, but I was wide awake for hours. Every night I listened as the rest of the household wound down. I listened to my parents voices in the room below me, murmuring before they drifted off. I listed to the silence after everyone else was off to the land of nod. The rule was that I had to stay in my bed, but I was allowed to have my dolls with me. When I got lonely, I lined them all up against the wall (I must have had a dozen) and played with them for company. After awhile I would close my eyes, and then open them again when my mother came in the room. Since I never remembered falling asleep or was conscience of waking up, I assumed I didn't sleep.
A year ago, my son began doing this same thing. There is nothing wrong with him; his natural rhythm is just out of sync with the rest of the world.
Both Jeff's and my own DNA makes our son an introvert. He will play with other children, but only for so long before he isolates himself. Carl Jung described an introvert as a person who needs solitude to energize him or herself. An introvert doesn't necessarily dislike people, but socializing drains him and he must step away to re-center himself from time to time. This is hard to do in a daycare environment. When you are 4 years old, the best way to get people to leave you alone, after you have told them to go away and they don't listen, is to bite them. Do this, and steer clear of you. Works every time.
I've watch my son play by himself, and listened to the running dialogs he makes up between his toys. He weaves stories and narratives out of thin air, and he seems to find other children a distraction. I've seen him initiate play with other kids, but he has to be in the mood. Often, he isn't.
"Why did you bite him?" I will ask.
"He was bothering me," is usually the reply.
An introvert who is unable to isolate himself gets cranky. Add sleep deprivation on top of this, and you have a very volatile individual on your hands.
Yesterday morning was a bad one. My son could not get to sleep the night before, and Jeff says he was up past midnight. When I tried to wake him up to go to daycare, he began to cry.
"Stop! I'm trying to sleep!" he whimpered. When I got him dressed anyway, he wailed. He wailed on the way to school. He wailed when I dropped him off. Apparently, his mood never improved until Jeff picked him up. By then, he was acting punch drunk and silly, but he was happy to be with his father and wasn't irritable.
This morning, Jeff was home and we let our little boy sleep a couple of extra hours. I expect his day has gone a lot smoother than yesterday.
It's not easy, being an owl in a lark world, or being an introvert in a world of extroverts (who outnumber us 3 to 1). When he's well rested and well centered, people tell me my son is a delight, and I can vouch that he is. He's bright, he's funny, and he's sweet. On the other hand, when he's physically tired and emotionally drained he's a different (and much scarier) child. His head doesn't spin and he doesn't projectile vomit pea soup, but otherwise he's every bit as unpleasant as any demon-possessed person at these times.
I wish I know how to help him. I wish I knew how to make him fall asleep when he is not sleepy, and could let him sleep when he is. I wish I could explain to him how to nicely tell other people that he needs to be by himself instead of attacking them. Then again, we're up the same tree, my husband, our little man and me. We're a family of owls who have no way to explain ourselves to the larks. All we can say to them is "Hoooooo!" and hope they understand what we mean.
