Riding the Dragon

Dr. McCurry talks about being in a "riding the dragon" mindset when parenting kids. Instead of head butting and crashing into rocks, dive into the madness, paddle into the current fast, hang on to the tail of the dragon and go with the energy. Elliot lately has been begging me in the most desperate whiny voice to buy him this grotesque baby skeleton in a cage that we saw in Target. Tonight he started in again, "whyyyy wouldn't you buy me the skeleton in the cage that I wanted. I waaaaanted it." I said, "It was disturbing and gross. I didn't want to buy it." He said, "It wasn't a baby, it was a person." More whining.

With my new dragon mind, I said, "You really like skeletons, you really like bones don't you." "I do because they're the inside of a person." he said. It worked like a charm, perfect verbal redirection. We then talked about how next semester he'll take the after school science class. Totally into it. Maybe I don't need to slay any dragons elsewhere in my life.

We'll see if it works with Asher. Ok, wear your spiderman pajamas to school. Ok, cry into your ice cream that's too sweet. too cold. too rich. too much. Too many choices and no limits isn't good either. We'll see.

He's still in the dreamscape of babyhood. When I read him "Brown Bear" he pretends to eat a little piece of each animal's tongue. "Yum" he says. He asks for cod liver oil. He asks his parents to "look at the poop" on the sidewalk. In the Halloween costume book he points to the picture of the boy dressed as an alien and says, "Asher."