learning to navigate the world, j-bear style

Done Her Job

Last night was a doozy. J has these episodes where he wakes up and if he can’t be immediately soothed back to sleep, the world somehow ends. The crying and falling apart is heartbreaking to see and extremely difficult to settle.

Brookie doesn’t like to hear her boy upset. She gets agitated so once she came into the bedroom with us, she hopped on the bed. J’s initial reaction is to push her away. Brooklyn is a sensitive girl but not when it comes to this – she knew her job. She pushed close and laid her head across him (the “lap” command, which she’s been shown to do at these times before). She kept him firmly snuggled between herself and me until he was dozing once more. She looked up, a sort of “yep, did my job” expression, and hopped off to go lay in her bed in the living room once more.

This morning, some of the same unsettled behavior returned as we headed into school. Again, Brooklyn did her job. He was upset walking down the hallway so she nudged him with her nose to get his attention. He was fine by the time he entered his classroom and we’re hoping for a great day.

It’s hard to explain to people what Brooklyn’s jobs actually boil down to when it comes to behavior disruption. The behaviors she’s responding to, like the crying and the agitation, are things that we have shown her are things she should be responding to. It is a very hard process, showing Brooklyn this, because your instinct is to focus on soothing your child rather than teach a lesson to anyone else about it. You want to comfort them yet sometimes your repertoire does not include the needed antidote for what ails them. This is Brooklyn’s cue to step in and step up. It is a process that began the day they met and slowly grows a tiny bit every day until we have moments like we’ve had this week where she successfully brings him back to a good place faster than we could have without her. She offers a sense of uncomplicated peace and reassurance that not even a parent can quite muster. Parents grow impatient. Parents get anxiety. Parents feel their child’s hurt and pain. Brooklyn sees past it. She sees a situation she’s been taught before and knows that when her boy is calm again, so many good things happen. She knows that no matter what, he will be calm again even when the people standing around think he’s lost for a long time. Patiently, peculiarly and perfectly she loves J back to his best self and marches on with her day once she has.

She is such a good girl, this Brooklyn. She is confident enough to withstand the initial rebuffs her boy might give, sensitive enough to know when he needs her despite the rebuffing and silly enough to always be able to do something unexpected to make him giggle once more. This is one hell of a learning process but I have to say I am loving every minute of it. Every day, these two do something that amazes me. There’s little better in this world than that.

1 Comment

  1. Anne rossetti

    Amazing!!!!!!!!!

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