One of the things I was nervous about when I was first pregnant was having a girl. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do girly things – I don’t wear make-up, hate pink, I’m sure there’s a hairbrush somewhere in the house – well, you get the picture. Sure enough, I got a little girl, and sure enough, she is pinker than pink. But somehow we get by.
Today though, I had to wonder whether she is related to me at all. I love the outdoors. I grew up walking dogs, riding horses, living near a moor, then a wood, spending lots of time out and about. I’m not sporty, and not overly fond of getting wet, but I like the countryside. I don’t like where we live, in a small village, because it’s too noisy with the sounds of powertools, cars, motorbikes and next doors pump for his fishpool. (I suspect most ppl don’t even hear this kind of noise, but I’m partially deaf and as such I listen harder…)
Anyway, getting back to my offspring. It’s a glorious autumn day, and the children were going stir crazy, so I thought we’d go for a walk. Small likes the Ergo enough that he held still while I messed around and took three attempts to get him into it, and Big picked up her jacket and put on her shoes. She then proceeded to whinge and whine for the entire 40 minute walk (which was probably only really 30 minutes, except I kept stopping to wait for her to stop whinging 🙁 ) There could be bears in the wood. She was scared of the wind in the trees. There were stones on the path. It was muddy. And so on and so forth.
I know this is done purely for my benefit – what I don’t understand is why. Why does she want to make me miserable rather than happy? I was looking forward to an autumn walk in the sun, instead I got the walking equivalent of blackboard scraping. 🙁
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4 responses to “Alien offspring”
If i was at my best and having this experience with Moo, i would say she was genuinely frightened/overwhelmed/freaked out by the wood. if i was at my fairly normal/worst i would strop at her for not having a normal reaction to a perfectly normal event. Sometimes i remember and when i look closely i see that the sensory input has been too much, or too little, sometimes i don’t and i get really frustrated by her being a weirdo.
Obviously, not being there and not knowing Big like you do, i have no idea if that was anything like the case – but shall i send you “The Out of Sync Child”? I found it was exceptionally enlightening as books go, about all my children and about myself.
I’m not sure whether she was putting it on or genuinely frightened – but I welcome any kind of input that might help me make sense of it. I read Jan’s “The highly sensitive child” and that made quite a lot of sense, although I think I ought to read the highly sensitive adult as well 😉
Maybe we could start a club????? ;~)
You can definitely count me in for the highly sensitive adult!!