Friday, July 24, 2009

Dance It Out

Silas was building a "trap" with 2x4's outside the back door, and Eden was hanging in the doorway, standing on her new-found sturdy legs, which made Silas instantly hysterical. When I walked outside to comfort him, the sound he was making wasn't really crying and it wasn't really yelling... it was more like roaring. He was pacing around, red-faced, fists clenched, roaring with all of his might. At one point he began kicking the recycling bin (he's never kicked anything before), while roaring. Finally he could spit out "I'm so FRUSTRATED!" roar roar roar "She's so MEAN!!!" roar roar roar. The whole time, he couldn't figure out what to do with his body -- he was stomping, tensed, dying to do something.

On Flight of the Conchords last year, Brett danced out his anger, and watching Silas, for the first time, I could see the value of dancing it out.

Maybe this is our future family anger management...

[I am adding this the next morning:
You should also probably know that Silas's newest word is "mean" and that he tries it out a lot, and that after his fuming fury, the two of us sat in his "clubhouse" and told stories about Dora and her baby sister who breaks all of her stuff, and about how babies are more curious than mean. He recovered quite well...]

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