I feel very sorry for Seth the last couple of days. Yesterday, we got home from Savannah’s swimming lesson at 3:00. He was just as grumpy and weepy as he has been the past 2-3 weeks. We came back to a warm house as usual. But Seth’s skin was a lot hotter than ours. It was not a high fever. It went down last night, then back up this afternoon.
I’d been thinking his high emotions were just the phase he’s in, so I wanted to mother him more, reading, singing, affection. I realized this morning that it all started about when summer really picked up for us. Beautiful weather means going out more in the afternoons, walks to the park, playing in the backyard. He was going too much for 2 1/2.
So today we relaxed at home more. We worked on ABCs and 123s. He watched cartoons. I read him a lot of stories. Twice, once in the afternoon and again at bedtime, I was reading from a book that he was enjoying. Although he showed no signs of disliking the book or of being sick or anything out of the ordinary, I distinctly heard him whimpering. It was light, but it came and went as I read from the book. The first time I heard it and asked him what was wrong. He said something like, “Leave me alone.” The second time, at bedtime, he didn’t really answer, like nothing was wrong.
We have not made him take a nap in a while because it was a struggle, and without a nap he’ll go to bed earlier, which is what we prefer to the nap. If staying at home and more mothering doesn’t work, I’m going to make him take some kind of nap every afternoon. Even if he goes down later at night. I hate to see him like this.
But I will say this, and I don’t know why I forget it because I’ve seen it happen with Savannah. Almost as soon as I started showing him more attention, doing things for him as soon as he asked, taking a gentler attitude with him, he responds in kind. The crankiness still comes and goes, but he was noticeably happier, more cooperative, enjoying books with me. An older friend/mother told me, “They’ll get your attention one way or the other.” You might as well give it to them from the beginning, the right kind of attention. Of course that makes sense. Of course children need attention, but like a lot of things, when you see it work, it’s a surprise to see how instant the kindness and mothering is appreciated.
