Face

I'm liking the interpretation room of face reading between species.  Most people are familiar with cats & their moods.  Boomer has such an expressive face & doesn't mind his photo taken.  

So what is his mood?

A cat posed like this looks tired, lazy even.  His face sort-of reflects it too.  A picture can't show the subtle tail flick & deep sigh.  Is he bored?  restless?  tired?  Is he ready to pull his specialty cat hypnotism to make anyone looking at him think, "you are getting sleepy, vvverrrryyyy sssleeeeepyyyyy..."

Or is he saying, "What? Just bug off, I'm thinking & planning, what do you want?"  Tired & reflective kinda look the same on people too.  We identify moods in our house like they are stage characters.  Tired usually appears with Hungry & Thirsty.  Mad is often arm & arm with Frustrated and Sad.  Happy is great friends with Silly and Satisfied.  Thinking this way has really helped to break down what moods are.  Sometimes we discuss moods by breaking down the sequence, "backtracking" or "back-chaining" as some literature & professionals call it.  When problem solving we often have to look backwards & sleuth out the sequence of events that got us in trouble.  Thats not easy to do if you are not easily aware of your thoughts & emotions.  

There are people in the world that can read your emotions faster than anyone can interpret them.  Chances are those are the same people that frustrate the last very last nerve out of you.  The trick is understanding WHY am I so ticked off.  If people (adults)  are not responsible for their own emotions, its not fair to expect others (children) to be responsible for riling them either.  Teaching responsibility includes being responsible for our own feelings and actions.

Life is in the details

If my son's eagle eye hadn't spotted it & he wasn't about to pick it up, would you have spotted the agget?  This is spring gravel from winter icy road sand, waiting for the sweeper machine to collect it.  He spotted this one in about a minute.  He has trained his eye to look for the different light reflecting in the sunshine.

 I love details, yet at times they drive me crazy.  An interesting piece of artwork has slightly skewed & usually not quite perfect details.  This forces the eye to keep coming back & studying it in a pleasing way, looking for pattern or sense or simply a relating point.  As the viewer it is my choice to accept or reject what I see, or to just interpret what suits me.  We learn to do this by experience.  

I find its strange how people can be so judgmental about obsessions/passions.  An obsession owns you, but you own your passion.  People are interested in all sorts of things all over the world, this should be celebrated.  Interests make people interesting, it doesn't matter if they collect shoes, stamps, antique tools, or movie trivia.  What we like changes throughout our lives.  The best question to ask a teenage person is not "what are you going to do when you graduate grade 12?" but "What do you really like to do?"  Its a good question among new acquaintances too.

This is a whole spring of my son's rock collecting.  He automatically does this, he loves it.  The thrill of the hunt, the pride of the find, it makes him happy.  I am happy he has learned to direct his focus & energy this way.  The challenge is getting him to understand this focus has to be applied to many things, pleasant & unpleasant.  

He collected this jar with repetition; learning & relearning is often the same way.

One step forward

Today was a beautiful sunny day.  My son had a happy weekend morning ignoring cartoons in favor of Nintendo DS in his jammies & blanket nest in the living room.  He ate brunch in a reasonable amount of time, got dressed when he was asked to.  The difference is there was no timeline to pressure him.  He had the option to go out for a co-ride on the back of a motorcycle or help me dig out the front yard.  He chose to stay home & help dig, he loves to dig.  It got too hot mid-day to dig so that was postponed.  He went into the backyard & was inspecting the well overgrown lawn & yard.  He took it upon himself to dig out the push mower & started mowing down that grass.  Without my asking him to.  I'm still reeling from the sequences of gifts from my son today.  No arguing.  No whining.  He saw a problem he could fix, and he went at it.  If I could do cartwheels, I would!

After about 5 minutes I asked him to let me put some sun lotion on him, which he narrowly allowed.  Skin cancer is a serious thing & worthy of prevention.  I sweetened the effort by telling him how proud I am he chose to do this job himself, without my asking.  When the job was done I would pay him $10, which is very pleasing to a kid.  He allowed me to get him his hat to keep the sun off & he wore it.  Every 5-10 minutes or so he would stop & need a drink of water or iced tea.  Or he would stop & investigate something or arrange something in the yard.  He found a dead mouse that our old dog killed.  He called out & told me about it, but didn't touch it.  He scooped it up with the dog doodie scooper & asked me to get a bag so I could put it directly into the garbage can, which I did.  About 40 minutes into this yard project, he started getting frustrated, the job is only half done.  Some sunlotion had melted into his eye with sweat.  He was frustrated with his hair being in his eyes & wanted to chop a bunch of it away himself.  He whined and sniveled about his hair being too long & why did I make him wear the stupid sunlotion.  To the point that if I make him wear sunlotion again he would like to chop off his head.  Now we're talkin', here comes the extreme language, a proper meltdown was imminent.  I suggested to stop rubbing his eye with his sweaty shirt since that will not help.  I suggested to go wash his hands & face & try a damp cool  washcloth, which he did eventually.  Much milling through the house ensued, sans shirt, eye rubbing in progress via tissue.  I suggested a tissue may have powder lint that may not help as well as a damp washcloth.

Once the eye was rinsed with saline the meltdown averted briefly, until annoyance with his hair resumed.  I said to leave it, & we can jump in the car & go get it cut properly so no one will make fun of any self barbering later at school.  He struggled with this, he really dearly wanted to chop it away himself.  Finally we got out of the house to the barber.  Where we waited for an hour & I had to keep reminding to leave the eye alone, amidst his squirming, & fidgeting.    Home again, a cold drink, & the mowing resumes, YIPEEE!!!  Considering the push mower isn't exactly easy to use, its warm out, and the lawn looks choppy now.  I have to go & check & praise his progress every 10-15 minutes at his request, but its done.  Another cold drink, & he's raking, on his own, without request or prompting.  I'm not sure if this is my son, he looks, sounds and smells like him.  Okay, the rake he picked isn't working & he's getting frustrated again.  I told him to hold on, I think there's a better rake, to let me get it for him.  He finished the raking, stuffed the rakings into a garbage pail, then stuffed them into the compost bin.  He's hopping inside the garbage pail stuffed in the composter to pack it down!  I let it ride.  We later patiently explained that squashing the contents of a composter means it won't decompose & it will have to be dug out again.  My son took it well, with a simple, "oh" response.

This could've been a complete nuclear event, with a smashed rake & mowed un-identifiable dog toys all over the lawn.  I was nearby, but not interfering.  Its almost like there's an invisible bungee cord between us.  When I am feeling well, and he is having success with an idea, it is a wonderful thing.  My son is happiest outside so I was fairly certain this would be a success.  We don't have a whole lot of stellar days, but this counts!  The happiness held on right through bedtime & on into the next morning.  A bright light in our home, I am thankful.