Yesterday when I got home from work, dh and the boys were all outside. I went inside to change clothes intending to go back outside with the family, but I had barely gotten upstairs when a screaming Bitty came running inside looking for me.
"You got WET on it AAAHHHHHHH I don' wanna be WEEETTTT!!! And (Cuddlebug and Bearhug) iss shooting WET and you pants is being WET AAAHHHHH don't get WET on my red shirt and der WAFFING!!!! STOP WAFFING brudders!!!!"
He went on and on... apparently his brothers had gotten a hold of the water hose and sprayed him with it. And then laughed. Bitty was gritting his teeth and removing the offensive wet items as he told me what had happened. The indignant anger was palpable.
Of course my first reaction was to try to calm him down. I mean he was UPSET. He hates to be wet (bathtime has become a battleground again but that's another post). He especially hates to have his clothes wet.
My second reaction was that this is the first time I can ever remember him noticing that someone was laughing and being upset about it. Normally he'd be upset about the "wet" but oblivious about the laughing. That's a big leap in social awareness IMO. And I was impressed that he was able to tell me exactly what happened, and in pretty-darn-near complete sentences too. Go Bitty!
And then my heart stopped.
My sweet baby is no longer oblivious to things like someone laughing when he's upset. Not that it happens often (thank goodness) but being aware of it and knowing how to handle it are two different things :(.
I wonder if this came about because of what happened at school last week, in which he was the one laughing. He was apparently calling his friends names* at school (and if his response when we tried to talk to him about it at home was any indication, he thought he was HILARIOUS but clearly his friends did not). So maybe going through that experience and having to apologize for it is what taught him that laughing at someone is not nice. And therefore having someone laugh at him is unacceptable (as it should be).
When Bearhug and Cuddlebug came in, Bitty started chewing them out for both the "wet" and the "waffing." Maybe I shouldn't be so worried about him after all, he knows how to stick up for himself. He told his big brothers EXACTLY what he thought about the situation. I intervened before he could start another incident (because he gets physical when he's angry and they were grumpy about something else and not exactly in a mood to tolerate being chewed out by little brother), had them apologize and convinced him to let it go.
Peace restored. Whew.
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Comments (3)
Children are magnificent--each and every one of them special. This made me smile--and laugh, and then sigh. Go Bitty!
Lucky that Bitty knows how to let things go, at least at this age and stage. I was never great on it, and I think it may have rubbed off on my youngest, who is within the spectrum. He's a junior in high school at this point, and getting him to "drop it" or "let it go" has been difficult at best...
We do what we can...
Thats an interesting post. I knew some of them but mostly it was new to me. I enjoyed it very much.Keep them coming, because you have a fan.