Home alone

I'll maintain that kids are who they are from the moment they are born. I think most parents would probably echo this sentiment. However, this is not a nature or nurture argument here, just a set of three vingettes characterizing the different natures of my own three kids.

In each case we will look at how the kids each reacted when they were first alone and without supervision, although the circumstances were different in each case.

We have had baby sitters only five or six times with our kids, and most of those times have been with close family friends. When they cried we picked them up; when they fussed, we hugged them. Because of this we know most everything that has gone on with them until they reached school, including the time they were each alone for the first time.


With N. the oldest, my daughter, she was a young two, and driving us crazy. Although we had never done this before we put her in one of the bedrooms on her own and told her she had to play by herself and not come out of the room.

A few minutes later, while my wife Jane was cooking dinner, the phone rang and Obachan, Jane's mother, was on the line saying in a slightly annoyed voice, "I do not understand why you called me and put N. on the phone to say to call you back. N. says that I was supposed to call you back and say that she wants pizza for dinner. So I called, but I am making dinner here myself, so I am going to hang up now."

Aparently N., whom none of us knew was able to dial the phone, and who, in fact, had never made a phone call before (but had watched us), called her grandmother from the bedroom to tell her to say that N. wanted pizza for dinner. This solved her problem of not coming out of the bedroom, but still getting her message to us.

P. my oldest boy, was sick, and, again, two. Jane was home with him, but had to take N. to kindergarten. This meant that Jane either had to wake P. up, wrap him for the snow, bundle him in the car, and take him along, or, for the first time, leave him alone, rush N. to school, and be back in five mintues before he woke up. Jane did not have the heart to wake him from his sleep and so opted for the latter choice.

Jane drove N. off to school and hurried home in minutes. Of course when she got back, there was P. quietly, sadly, staring out the living room window, sick, alone for the first time, waiting for someone to come home.

P2., my youngest boy, was in the house with N. for a time while everyone else was outside in the back yard at N.'s birthday party. I was in the front yard as it happened, and N. came outside and slammed the front door. This left P2., two years old, alone in the house. Because I thought this might be interesting, and because I could watch him, unobserved, through the front window, able to rush in at a moment's notice, I let the scene play out.

When P2. first realized he was all alone, he looked around nervously, and his face began to screw up into a horrendous yowl. I was ready to spring into action. But --- the yowl never came. Instead, P2. blinked a few times, turned around and scurried off to the back of the house. By the time I had reached the back yard and pressed my head up against the glass, P2. was sitting in the middle of a table we had set up in the family room and was eating cake from P.'s and N.'s plates, perfectly content, and perhaps even in bliss.

Torture at the doctor's office

P2 was, and is, a pretty tough kid. He has always recovered fast from getting his head bumped, is a perfect patient at the dentist's office, and stoically takes his shots. However, there is one thing where he could just not stand the pain, always fought like mad, and screamed bloody murder: having his head measured at Dr. Ettner's office.

This torturous procedure requires that the doctor wrap a paper tape measure around the baby's head and look to see what size it has grown to. Ordinarily the torture lasts for only about twenty seconds, but in P2's case we never managed it in less than three or four minutes.

Infinity, age seven

I came downstairs one morning to find N., age seven, arguing with P., age five, about the size and nature of infinity. In particular they were arguing about what you get if you subtract infinity from infinity. The conversation went something like this:


"No N___, infinity goes fowevew [forever] so if you take anything away fwom it it is still infinity."

"You're stupid P___. It doesn't matter, because the thing you are taking away from it also goes forever, so it is zero."

"I am not stupid."

"You are too."

"Then you'we stupid too."

When I came in the kitchen they each immediately insisted that I side with them and settle the argument, which put me in a difficult position.

It probably would hurt...

P2, age 3, had been watching Davy Crockett on videotape one week. This has many shooting scenes, and ends with a great battle at the Alamo. On our way in the car after school one day, for P. and N. to get a vaccination, the two older kids disussed how much this might hurt. P2 was looking uncomfortable. When I asked him what was wrong, he suggested that maybe we should turn around and go home so that N. and P. would not have to go get shot.

P2, now just four, has been having epoch battles every morning with his toy solidiers and castles/forts/battleships/etc. constructed out of wooden blocks. These battles have a full range of sound effects, and take place over the entire range of our living area. Recently he was in the middle of one of the battles, on a somewhat cold morning, and I noticed that he had on only his underwear. Here is our dialog:

"Hey, [P2], go up and put your pants on!" I said.

"Well Dad, I'm somewhat resistant to that suggestion this morning," P2 said.

"Oh? Why is that?" I asked, knowing that I was soon to be educated.

"Because today I am in the French Resistance!"

Revenge

I rushed off to work, extremely preoccupied, and worried about being late for class. I had had to scold my three-year-old, P. just before I left. I was oddly uncomfortable all morning, but did not have time to think about it. Finally, in the middle of a lecture, I stopped, took off my shoe, looked inside, and realized what the problem was (to the delight of my class). P., mad at me, had, in his own quiet way, filled my shoe with water before I left for work. No wonder I had been so uncomfortable for the past hour and a half!

Seeds early, should have known

N., age nine, has blossomed into a decent writer for her age, with a good command of style and language. In thinking about this I remember the huge fights we used to have each night when when she first got her teeth, and I had to brush them: she simply could not bear to stop talking long enough for me to get the job done.

The quality of mercy...

Jane, reading to P., age seven: "... During the bombing, no British industrial cities were spared."

P.: "Hey mom, what does spared mean?"

J: "Well it means, when you have mercy on someone and then you spare them."

P: "Oh. You mean like you take a spear and spare them?"