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The apartment building I'm in, and the one that faces it, are both full of families with kids ranging from 4 weeks to 13 years. When it gets warm out, and stays light late, they have a running evening game of multiethnic (Chinese, but also Thai, Egyptian, Korean, and Ethiopian) tag with benevolent parent supervision.
The little kids figured out pretty quickly that I like to play tag too. So now I got invited to one of the driveway-wide birthday parties, featuring yummy Chinese food, all the families on the block, and a giant interfamily toddler-driven waterfight to cool everyone down.
(Joseph, three, irritates everyone with his battery-operated quarter-size supersoaker. He eventually gets soaked with a water balloon in return. It's too much; he runs for Daddy. Daddy calms him down, reloads his water gun, and sends him in search of his aquatic assailant to return fire. You could see the "don't get mad, get even" lesson soaking in-- so to speak.)
(Alex, also three, has a tiny water balloon. It doesn't quite have enough water in it to burst when she throws it on the pavement. One throw... two throws.... it survives until she throws it on the ground next to her mother, and it bursts, splashing her Mom. I look at her mom and shake my head, grinning conspiratorially. "One Mother's Day per year is not enough!" She nods wearily.)
Meanwhile, Alex's dad has zeroed in on Weston, the seven-month-old Chinese baby. I played with Weston before, and got him to grab my finger (not a big deal; it's a reflex) and look at me. He picks up Weston, and within ninety seconds he's having a delighted and mutual conversation with a laughing, fully engaged baby.
How did he DO that? I watch, fascinated, as the conversation continues and neither one gets tired of it. Finally the dad looks at me and explains: "He likes it when I make the "sshhhhh" noise and when I open my eyes wide."
Pause for a moment to soak that in: Now THAT is careful observation. He puts my clinically trained eyeballs to shame. And, now that I know what to look for, the dad is making the same face and the same noise repeatedly, and Weston just soaks it in. Dang.
The little kids figured out pretty quickly that I like to play tag too. So now I got invited to one of the driveway-wide birthday parties, featuring yummy Chinese food, all the families on the block, and a giant interfamily toddler-driven waterfight to cool everyone down.
(Joseph, three, irritates everyone with his battery-operated quarter-size supersoaker. He eventually gets soaked with a water balloon in return. It's too much; he runs for Daddy. Daddy calms him down, reloads his water gun, and sends him in search of his aquatic assailant to return fire. You could see the "don't get mad, get even" lesson soaking in-- so to speak.)
(Alex, also three, has a tiny water balloon. It doesn't quite have enough water in it to burst when she throws it on the pavement. One throw... two throws.... it survives until she throws it on the ground next to her mother, and it bursts, splashing her Mom. I look at her mom and shake my head, grinning conspiratorially. "One Mother's Day per year is not enough!" She nods wearily.)
Meanwhile, Alex's dad has zeroed in on Weston, the seven-month-old Chinese baby. I played with Weston before, and got him to grab my finger (not a big deal; it's a reflex) and look at me. He picks up Weston, and within ninety seconds he's having a delighted and mutual conversation with a laughing, fully engaged baby.
How did he DO that? I watch, fascinated, as the conversation continues and neither one gets tired of it. Finally the dad looks at me and explains: "He likes it when I make the "sshhhhh" noise and when I open my eyes wide."
Pause for a moment to soak that in: Now THAT is careful observation. He puts my clinically trained eyeballs to shame. And, now that I know what to look for, the dad is making the same face and the same noise repeatedly, and Weston just soaks it in. Dang.
