Mr. No Creative Play

One of the comments from Max's development assessments that struck me as odd (think I have mentioned this before) was that he didn't engage in creative play because he didn't try to feed or put to sleep his stuffed animals. I explained to the assessor, that he does engage in plenty of pretend play, but just not those too activities. That didn't seem to impress her. Now, I'm not worried about this at all in Max. I think he is fine. I just found it so interesting because it seemed so gender specific. Before I had a child, I remember getting into discussions, debates, arguments about the whole nature vs. nurture. I think I might have even done a paper or two on it in college. I used to weigh much more on the nurture side. After having Max, I tend to lean more towards the nature side. The expression, "he's all boy" used to really irritate me. After having Max, I get it and have felt it to be true since he was an infant. I find it amazing and fascinating. Before a child, I used to feel more that a parents job was to mold and shape a child. I still believe that to a certain degree, but feel more that my job is to try to stay out of the way so that Max can be who he was meant to be by giving him the love and support and direction he needs.

Why do I bring this up now? Why am I up yet again in the middle of the night pondering something like this?

Max woke me up out of a sound sleep about 12:30 am because he couldn't find his "train milk". He had been using his cup as a train along the crib slats before bed hours earlier. In fact, Max can and does make almost anything into a train. Yet, no creative play or imagination in the works there (typed with a tad of sarcasm). Yes, yes, I know. Bad mommy. Letting her kid go to bed with milk. That coupled with my deplorable lack of routine and consistency around teeth brushing is deplorable. Understood. No need to harp on it or point it out. You can just mutter your breath about the permanent damaging I'm doing to my son if you can't help yourself. Like all of us, I'm just doing the best I can here.

At 2:40 ish, I hear this urgent "mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy" that doesn't stop until I get to his room to ask what was the matter (luckily or unluckily I was still awake and just thinking about trying to fall back asleep) to which I get "where's the witch?" Max loves snowmen of all shapes and sizes, but he has an avid interest in witches as well ever since Halloween. At this point, I've scooped him up and we are cuddling in the rocker as I ask him what witch, the neighbors witch on the door and explain yet again that it is put away for the year until next Halloween just like the Christmas tree (which he is still asking to have "put back together"). He said, yes. Then, what about the "Einstein witch" (from the Hansel and Gretel episode) "she went far far away". Yes, I agreed. She got really, really small and Rocket made wind and she blew far, far away. To which, he nestled in contently and let me rock him for a bit until it was back to the crib. Coincidental that we have been having lots of really heavy winds the last few days? I think not. During our last wind storm, he wanted to (and we did) go out for a walk to look for her to see if she would blow past. So interesting to see him try to make the connections and make sense of it all.

While I'm on the subject of Max, he's had a few (in my opinion) interesting melt downs lately. The other day, he was out walking with his nanny and Shadow while I finished up work and the "poo bag" Noemi had started to blow away. Max ran after it...thankfully stopping when it blew across the street...and had a meltdown over it. She brought Max in and he was still upset and started to cry again over dinner about it. I had Noemi laughing when I (on the sly) got another one and pretended to go out an catch it, which did appease him at the time. And, no he did not have a nap that day. Now, I can see his little mind working days later (even though he didn't bring it up) that if the bag can come back, maybe the mean witch can too. Sigh.

I'll have to get into the other meltdowns some other time if I remember cause I really do need to try to get back to sleep since the night is quickly away. And, apparently, Max is still awake.