Every once and a while I’m provided an amazing opportunity to see that yes, I have grown over the years. Last week I was visiting a good friend who has a 15 month baby. At one point she was walking around and playing. She was out of my sight for a minute or two, and even though I knew her mom was checking and her dad could see her, I just had to get up and check on her. When I did I saw she was ‘playing’ in ants! Thankfully they weren’t fire ants, but who knows whether they’d bite her eventually. So I picked her up and we eventually got her cleaned up. She wasn’t very happy, but I found it interesting, and she cheered up after a clean diaper.
Later that afternoon she was lying on the floor. I started to play with her by pointing at her, with the intention of tickling her like people normally do. But she started to laugh almost immediately. I was still about 2 feet away from her and she was laughing up a storm. Then, after a little bit I actually felt something pushing back towards me - she was trying to play back with her energy. She didn’t have much control, but it was pretty interesting and fun. So we played with our energy for a bit and had a blast. I don’t know how well that works with all kids, since this kid is pretty darn special with energy and things that are hard to describe, but it’s probably worth trying with others. I just would be quite careful about projecting energy and harming them by throwing them out of balance or worse.
Also, while we were there, Carrie had a small seizure. After, she walked over to Carrie and grabbed her arm, trying to help but not knowing how to yet. It was very interesting.
That was a very fun day!
