Saturday, January 28, 2006
The Sacred Crayons
You would not believe the effects that crayons have on my daughter. I've been wanting for Emma to start playing with crayons, drawing or scribbling. I give her one and it goes straight to her mouth. I take it away and show her how to scribble on paper. I place it in her hand and show her. Meanwhile, she's obsessing about the box of 24 crayons in my hand. She doesn't want to scribble, she wants the box. So I try several more times to get her interested in the paper, even trying to hide the box. No go.

Finally I hand her the box. Emma is so excited she is practically vibrating. As she pulls the crayons out one by one you can see her hand trembling. So that's the game. Take all the crayons out and put them all back in. Except when they won't go back in. I'm freaking out because she's going to break them and she's going from zero to pissed in one second flat because she can't shove a crayon in the box.

At this point taking away the box would produce a full on meltdown. She goes several rounds of remove and replace. Then it's time for lunch. When I try to take the box away she pulls away from me. I try again and she's protecting it with her whole body. Finally I yank them away forcefully and she totally freaks out. Throwing herself on the ground and bawling. She continued crying until I strapped her into her high chair and started feeding her.

Those crayons are powerful medicine.

(In retrospect I see I probably should have let her carry them to the high chair and then taken them away. Oh well. Live and learn.)