Empathy

[Marin steps in for a more average family-oriented post.]

I keep trying to write my own thoughts but have thwarted myself time and again with notes scrawled on envelopes that I throw out, computer files not saved.

In a quiet moment, I muse on the children and their inner worlds. Little Girl (Annika) seems to be on some spurt of ordering and organizing – or perhaps I just stopped long enough to observe her. What I see is a little girl who’s a lot more “with-it” than I thought. In a brand new development, she climbed the whole stairwell (with a spotter) three times yesterday. She also gets the concept of putting shape blocks in shape holes, and that repetitive action like dropping cheerios or nibbling on my nose can be a hoot.

In Matteo’s world, there is the total fascination with space that now surpasses airplanes, which surpassed trains, which surpassed heavy equipment… [See photo of Matteo organizing his balls as the solar system.] Jeff and I cannot fathom what deep space is to a 3.5 year old as it’s still really a pretty heady concept for the adult mind, but he’s into it.

Back on earth, in the inner being, I see in Matteo something that fascinates me – a new sense of empathy with his surroundings.

A conversation with Matteo on Thanksgiving morning:

Matteo, “That turkey looks go-ood.”

[Naked raw turkey carcass, looking not good. I start get ready to cook a pumpkin that is rotting and a new butternut squash.]

Matteo, “Don’t kill the squash. He’s my friend.”

Marin, “But he will mold, rot, die if we don’t eat him.”

Matteo, “What’s rot?”

Marin, “Rot is like dying. He will end up in the compost pile. It’s his job to be eaten. (I stop, realizing this is not helping.)

Matteo, “But he’s my friend. Who will be my friend?”

The stand-off was diffused by agreeing to save seed to grow NEW friends. And, the squash was good.

The dawning of empathy, part two:

For Christmas, Matteo, predictably, received two solar system puzzles (and three books on space as well as glow in the dark planets and stars). One of the puzzles, a neat but more artistic representation of the planets, inexplicably had a small planet with a frown and two tears. Matteo immediately grabbed it and gasped “Pluto is crying!”

I grasped for some acceptable explanation. “It’s sad to be so far from the sun?”

“Saturn is blocking it” Matteo explained, and “He doesn’t like the Outer Orbit.”

Our puzzle process was derailed.

I created a small smiling planet and taped it on top of Pluto. We completed the puzzle but decided that Pluto (as in that piece of the puzzle) could need to come up to the table and sit with Matteo. This would clearly make Pluto happier. Meanwhile, Matteo was please to see that “Neptune is with his boyfriend Uranus.”

I’m not sure empathy yet extends to other children, or his sister, but for a young boy who has a jet for a dolly, the planets were now aligned.